En fête

This weekend is Charnizay's big weekend. The village is 'en fête' and the great and good of Charnizay turned out.  Earlier in the week little yellow diversion signs began to spring up and the intersection in front of the church was cordoned off for the dodge 'em cars and other small fairground rides. Then yesterday the 'proper' deviation signs appeared and the village was blocked off for traffic; much needed as the main road up from Preuilly sur Claise to Loches runs straight through.

brocante & fair

  

Today there was a brocante/vide grenier/market, tomorrow there will be a VTT randonee (mountain bike ride).  It was a real pity the weather wasn't a good as yesterday when it was glorious. This morning it soon started clouding over and by late morning it was spitting rain and a gusty wind had blown up which played a bit of havoc with some of the stands.

There were stalls all long the main street. Some were manned by private individuals--full of bric a brac, others were traders selling things as diverse as umbrellas, US western gear --the French seem to love that stuff-- and socks & gentlemen's underwear. There was also a specialist pan stall--the pan lids had intricate gauges to judge the heat and when the contents were sufficiently cooked I think.

carnival masks

In the local library --yes we have one and it even has a tiny English section-- the local historical association had set up an excellent display about the history of Charnizay and the association's activities. Also on display were some wonderful carnival masks made by the village school children.

We had a chat with the gentleman manning the association display and came away with a copy of the 1840 map of the commune of Charnizay from the L'atlas cadastral d'Indre et Loire, some replica old postcards and some other fascinating historical bits and bobs.

historical exhibition

We've posted about the village and links to Acadia in Canada before. One of the association's displays recounted how some Acadians had been resettled south of La Roche Posay in the mid 18th century. 

Briefly: These Acadians had been imprisoned in England during the French & Indian War [1754 - 63] and on their release in 1763 they were given the opportunity to return to Acadia. However, they refused saying that they did not consider themselves English subjects but French and therefore they came to France. More of this in future posts....

detail of the commune de Charnizay, 1840

A little sun goes a long way

Another glorious spring day here in the Touraine. The sky is clear blue and the sunshine is beginning to shed some warmth.

All of this has an immediate effect on the plants and trees. It is almost as if they are all throwing off their overcoats, having a good stretch and saying to the sun--  'took you long enough! Now we can get on with the business of growing'.

one of our clumps of daffs

wild plum

Yesterday it was 17 on our outside thermometer which hangs by the kitchen door on the north side. Today it is at 15. It means it is warm enough that we can easily sit outside with our coffee [and a book...] on the south side of the house. 

The result of the sunny weather on our patch means that most of the daffs are out, the snowdrops have gone over completely, the larch is starting to flower as are the cowslips and we have a flowering wild plum tree [if we're wrong corrections please] which is absolutely humming as it is full of very happy honey bees and the odd bumble. 

happy bee

We have also seen other signs of spring. Yesterday in the late twilight a bat flitted to and fro over our drive. Last summer we had one using our barn as a summer roost so perhaps it has returned. We've also discovered some orchids although we'll have to wait until May to find out what kind they are. We sent Susan from Days on the Claise a photo of the leaves and she thinks they might a pyramidal or green winged species but at this point it is hard to say. We'll let you know in May.

mystery orchid

Larch tree flower

Larch flowers and buds

Cowslips coming into flower

Sweet treats

Like almost everyone else we have walnut trees and last autumn we harvested a large shopping bag full. Plenty to keep us going. Walnuts are so common in France that the French word for walnuts is noix [literally nuts].

We had gathered far too little to have any oil pressed. In fact we didn't even know if it was still possible--we have since found out it probably is--so will explore that for Autumn 2011.

Healthy or sweet? No contest...

But back to our bag of walnuts. I had, a while back, as one does, looked on the internet for recipies with walnuts to give me some ideas beyond classic walnut cake. I don't make sweet things very often and needed inspiration. Hard to imagine we once lived sans the option of internet searches....

Up popped a blog which offered a pecan pie style recipe which sounded tasty and simple. Hurrah! I thought worth trying sometime.  

The 'sometime' was last Sunday and rashly perhaps we invited some people we had recently met to join is in being guinea pigs in the eating. They, Tim and Pauline, blog too and we had found out that we had been regulars at the same time as Pauline in same pub in York--it truly is a small world sometimes! Pauline has blogged about the pub in more detail. 

willow cuttings

They came yesterday and it was a very enjoyable visit; we are the richer for some willow cuttings, which are in water but will be planted out tomorrow. Sometime in the past, probably about 40 yrs ago, a previous owner of the house planted the 2 1/2 acres with specimen trees so we have scots pine, larch, a cedar, spruce, wild chestnut, maple as well as the more common walnut, oaks and hazel; oh and a few elderly fruit trees: quince, cherry and apple. It was very nice-- the weather has been glorious-- to have a wander round with our guests seeing things beginning to "spring". Katinka, as she does, escorted us all the way.

left over...note rustic pastry

Today we had a second sweet treat. As it is Shrove Tuesday we had crepes with sugar and lemon juice for dessert. That's twice in two days....  naughty but nice.

Oh, and the walnut tarte seemed to go down well--not much of it remained.

Local Hero

Those of you who drop in on our blog from time to time may have noticed that we have a penchant for 'Les Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry' and that we've been posting one of the illuminations each month since January. The Duc du Berry died in 1416; his duchy was just to the south/south east of Touraine; the area is still known as the Berry.  

The brothers Limburg (Dutch, but working in France & Burgundy in the very late 14th/very early 15th century) created his book of hours, arguably the best example of late medieval illuminations--handpainted illustrations and embellished capitol letters in books written on vellum. Printing didn't exist as yet so only the very rich could have a book with so much artwork created to order. 

There's a local Touraine lad who was also highly skilled at this artform--Jehan Fouquet. Born in Tours, he lived a little later circa 1420 to 1480 and, in addition to being a brilliant illuminator, was also a talented painter in general; painting portraits and altar pieces.

Pieta, Nouans les Fontaines

This (large) altar piece is in the church of Nouans les Fontaines, about 1/2 hrs drive to the north east of us, not far from Montrésor. Painted on wood panels, it is quite moving when you see it for real as Mary, the mother of Christ is portrayed with eyes reddened by weeping. This realism is what makes Fouquet special. He was painting at the point of transition from the Medieval to the Renaissance. He'd travelled to Italy and been influenced by all that was happening there. Nouans les Fontaines also has a small museum dedicated to Fouquet you can visit it by putting €0.50 in the turnstile (exact change only.

The Visitation

Fouquet was commissioned to create a book of hours for a rich patron Étienne Chevalier. In case anyone was ever in any doubt that it belonged to Chevalier he had his name plastered everywhere. Personalising your possessions is not new. You can clearly see it on the cornice above the figures in the illumination on the right here. Created around 1460 the 'Livre d'Heures d'Étienne Chevalier' is special not only because the illuminations are of very high quality but also because Fouquet did something novel. He dispensed with the traditional bordering of any illumination with foliage and flowers. This gave him a larger space to work with and so the illuminations become more 'mini' pictures. They are still very delicate and small--16.5 cm by 12 cm--just think how fine the brushwork had to be to make sure the details are as clear as they are. Not to mention the cost of the paints and real gold which was used. 

Adoration of the Magi

Fouquet also wasn't above a bit of political statement making either. In this illumination of the Adoration of the Magi the 1st king offering gold is Charles VII (he's kneeling on a blue cloth with fleurs de lys--a good clue, but looks like him as well). There's an additional star to the one top right shining on the Christ child; the 2nd star shines right on Charles VII. Finally in the background are 3 French heralds blowing trumpets celebrating the success of the french soldiers attacking--surprise, surprise-- the English!

Most of the illuminations which survive can be seen in the Museé de Condé in Chantilly, north of Paris. Same place as the famous race-course.

Forgot to mention: Excellent online exhibition by the Bibliotheque National de France of Fouquet's work. French version is more extensive but there is an English version available.

Vignes et vin

It's March and this month 'Les Tres Riches Heures de Duc du Berry' shows the peasants working hard in the vinyards cutting the canes back and getting underway with the spring ploughing. In the background, hovering over one of the castle towers, is a cute little golden dragon. It is details like this which make the miniatures so fantastic. 

March

Over the weekend we noticed that our wine rack was looking a little empty and quite sad, so today we decided to replenish. Although we buy in the supermarket and direct from other producers we buy most of our 'everyday' wine at the co-op in Francueil. 

We first came across it on holiday in the early 1990's. Then, most of the wine, if not all--we really can't remember--was sold  'en vrac' [you bring your own containers of 5 or 10 litres and fill up like at the gas station]. Certainly that's the way we bought it then. Towards the end of our holiday we'd buy some specifically to take back to The Hague where we were living at the time. This meant decanting it into bottles [cleaned empties provided by the gite owner, Margaret], sealing the bottles with plastic corks you could buy in the supermarket and writing out sticky labels.  

One of each

When we were based in Loches during our house hunting last year, we decided to revisit the co-op and buy some wine to take back to the UK. The local signposts, if you come via the small road from Luzillé to the south still say 'cave cooperative' but they now market themselves under the name 'La Gourmandiere'. Most of the wine is now sold in bottles, although they still do it 'en vrac' as well. They also sell great bernache - more about this in the Autumn. 

Now that we live here we drive up once every couple of months a buy 2 or 3 1/2 cases. Sometimes we combine it with a visit to Vouvray. Today we just went to Francueil and bought 1/2 case each of rosé, sauvignon and cot.

Today we spotted a new leaflet on the counter as they sorted our order. Starting this month they will be holding a market the 1st Thursday of each month March to September. We'll certainly visit come April or May.