AL FRESCO DINING

 

TARRAGON

 

One of Yvonne's favourite places for a snooze is in our raised bed herb garden.

It's basically a large box on legs that Nick made from leftover decking.

Some of the herbs aren't doing as well as they should and the other day when I picked Yvonne up for a cuddle she smelled sweetly of tarragon.💕

SUNDAY ENTERTAINMENT

 

In our part of France (and probably all other parts of France) there is always something to do on Sundays.  Getting about is a joy here as the traffic is rarely anything other than very light and I can't remember ever paying a car parking or entrance fee at a village event.  

The village of Crissay sur Manse is a pretty place and every summer it hosts an event for local artists.

After weeks of hot, sunny weather, it was a bit iffy on the day!

There are artworks all over the place, in garages, courtyards and every possible corner.

We had never been inside the château grounds before.

It's part ruin, part habitable.

There were artists with their work everywhere.

In the grounds there were lots of old caves.

Some of the caves still had remnants of when they were inhabited, former troglodyte dwellings.

It's a very pretty village with a higgledy-piggledy arrangement of houses.

I liked this adaptation of the French letter box.

There was continuous musical entertainment (in between the rain showers).

When we turned up there was an excellent pavement swing band performing.

The thunderstorms on the day did not dampen people's enthusiasm and the crowds turned up for what was an excellent annual event.  It was our first visit but will not be the last.

REJUVENATION AND ANXIETY

During the recent spell of fine and very hot weather we tackled the rejuvenation of our outdoor furniture.  It was long overdue and worth the effort.  

Good as new!

Nick also painted our barn doors.  Another long overdue big job.

Lots of warm evenings means we have been making the most of our new gas barbecue.

Small but perfectly formed.

We were somewhat alarmed on seeing plumes of smoke billowing on the horizon a few days ago.  According to news reports it was yet another fire in a field a few kilometres away, a casualty of the heatwave.  Several hectares of forest and "broussaille" - undergrowth, weeds or scrubland, were destroyed, presumably along with wildlife, their habitat but thankfully no dwellings.

Unfortunately that's what we have all around us - scrubland.  The farmer who owns the huge field that we are in the middle of hasn't grown anything since 2022.  We now have huge, tall, very dry weeds and thick dead grasses wafting around in the strong hot winds.  His land comes right up to the boundary of our house, i.e. up to the walls.

Apart from the fact that it looks horrible, to us it seems like a serious fire waiting to happen.  All it would take is one cigarette tossed from a passing car, delivery van or tractor to start a fire.  We have spoken to the farmer who told us he wasn't prepared to do anything about it until August.  Last August during a heatwave he came and cut down a few metres of scrub around the house and left the rest.  We presumed he was cutting a fire break.  Bizarrely he also mowed the field across the road and baled all the huge weeds - then left them there.  He would need to shift about a hundred old brick shaped bales before he can do anything else with the land.

He said the land is too far from his farm (it's about 9½ km or 6 miles) and it would be too expensive to come and cut just part of it.  He wasn't at all concerned about our concerns about fire.  He also said a lot that we didn't understand owing to his accent and speed of speech but we got the gist.  He wasn't prepared to do anything.

Nick has strimmed an area around the house to act as a fire break.  It's very hard, time consuming and exhausting work with an ordinary domestic strimmer and we have no idea if it would actually make any difference in the event of a fire.

We don't know how realistic our fears are or where we stand.  Maybe we should contact the pompiers (fired department) for their advice.  We have written to the Maire to express our concern and ask for his advice.  He is always very helpful so hopefully we will find something out before we are burnt to a crisp.

A VERY OLD TREE, A COUPE D'HONNEUR AND THREE CHÂTEAUX

A little while ago we found a note in our letterbox inviting us to a ceremony called the "Labellisation d'un Arbre Remarkable" at our local château.  All the residents of Paulmy were invited and there was to be a glass of wine afterwards - "l'issue un vin d'honneur sera servi". 

 About 50 local people turned up and all age groups seemed to be represented.

The ceremony took place under the shade of the special tree - a cedar which is truly huge.  It's thought to be at least 500 years old, is 37m high and has a circumference of 12m.  A speech was given by the Maire, who introduced the château's recent Parisian owners, and then the tree specialist from the region.

Amongst the invited guests were the Maires from La Çelle-Guenand and Ferrière Larçon, two other local villages.  It was an important occasion, done in usual relaxed and amiable French style.  The owners were clearly very chuffed to have their ancient and remarkable tree officially acknowledged. 

After the formalities a glass of wine and plates of truly delicious nibbles were served.

A "coup d'honneur" is traditional at village events.  In the UK it would probably have been a cup of tea and a biscuit, or maybe a slice of Victoria sponge if you were lucky.  Vive la Différence!

We had never been inside the château grounds before, although we drive past it almost daily.

One of the other guests, a lady from Preuilly-sur-Claise, told us that the pigeonnier is the largest in the whole of Europe.  As much as the tree was remarkable, this was even more so.  I haven't attempted to count all the pigeon holes but that's an awful lot of pigeons!

As we were leaving one of the other villagers mentioned that during the second world war pigeons from Paulmy were used to carry messages.

In 1729 the Count of Argenson bought the Château des Ormes at the nearby village of Les Ormes and he set about renovating it.  He also bought another château a bit further away at Marigny Marmande, took it to pieces and used the stone from it for his new house at Les Ormes.  Whilst the renovations were in progress he lived at the château in Paulmy.

We know this because we visited the château at Marigny Marmande last summer.

We were shown around what is left of it by the current owner and when we said we lived at Paulmy she was very keen to tell us about the connection between the three châteaux.

The château at Paulmy is a very fine building and it was a privilege to see the grounds and be part of the ceremony on such a beautiful summer's morning.  

NOT JUST ROSES

The annual festival of roses at Chédigny takes place at the end of May every year.  The roses are in bloom for more than just the festival weekend of course and there are other things to see, not just roses.

It's a very pretty village, not far from Loches.  I don't know how the residents feel about the thousands of people who descend on their village for just one weekend but apart from that it's a lovely place to live.

 

CATCH-UP TIME IN PHOTOS

I can hardly believe that so much time has passed since my previous post!

Here are a few photos to show some of what we've been up to.

For years we always intended to go to the restaurant "Agnès Sorel" in Genillé.

We never did, then it closed for a few years.

Agnès Sorel was a "favourite" of the French king Charles 7th in the 1400's.

This year it has re-opened so we have eaten there three times already.

It seems to have had a very smart makeover.

The food is very good, very affordable and nicely served.

This is an Henri 2nd buffet.

A buffet is French for a sideboard and this one is a monster!

Henri 2nd was on the throne of France in the 1500's and clearly this piece of furniture is not quite that old but is definitely old.  It was left behind in a house that a friend has bought and she was keen to find a new home for it.  I offered to sell it for her on Facebook Marketplace until someone pointed out exactly what it was.  I looked it up and certainly in the UK they can sell for a great deal of money, in some cases thousands.  Oops!  We needed to think again.

She tried an antique place in the village where they took one look at the picture and said a resounding "non!".  I showed its picture to another antique place where I was told it was "unsaleable".  Oh dear.  

It looked like it was destined for the wood skip in the déchetterie after all, or at best, the bottom half as storage for tins of paint and plant pots in her barn.  It seemed such a shame for such a grand piece of furniture that clearly has some history to come to an unglamorous end so I sent its picture to a friend who has a friend who has a château.  The lady said "oui" only to change her mind a couple of hours later when she said "non".  It seems her husband wasn't keen.  I sent its picture to another friend who has a friend who knows someone who has another château and she said "oui!"  It's gone to one of those châteaux featured in a popular TV series about doing up châteaux so we might yet get to see it again on the telly!  Apparently they have four Henri 2nd buffets already but it's a big château with lots of big rooms to fill!

While Nick has been back in the UK we have had some very hot weather I've been walking Hugo in the cool of the early morning along the voie verte.

The voie verte is a reclaimed old railway track and many of the little signal houses are now renovated and lived in full time or as holiday homes.

At another of our favourite restaurants, Le George in Loches, a friend was served this glass of beer.

The hotel was originally named Le George Sand after the famous French novelist who lived in Loches in the 1800's.

Keeping cool in the very hot weather has been a challenge.

Yvonne spends most of the day on a chair in the small barn.

I painted this picture of another friend's house for her birthday.

This is the actual house.  It's was previously a sweet shop.

We finally got round to renovating an old metal coffee table.

It was missing its glass top when we bought it at a brocante a few years ago.

We used it outside to stand pots of plants on and it got rustier and rustier.

With its new tiled top it looks very smart and we're rather pleased with it.

The mug on the right is another brocante find for 1€.

This little "Wee Willie Winky" candlestick was waiting to be claimed on the "help yourself" table at the local tip.

Its rustic/rusty charm was impossible to resist.

We had a lovely afternoon at the rose festival at Chédigny.

We didn't go on the festival weekend but just before and again just afterwards, when there are no crowds of people so you can actually move around and see the roses.

We've had our own rose festival going on at home.

For a few days early in June we had several of these tiger moths clustered around our front door.  The caterpillar is known as the woolly bear.