Little Fifi, the kitten that arrived in the summer, is amazingly still here! Even though we have been away on holiday twice for about two weeks, she has attached herself to the house and to us and has decided to stay. While we were away different sets of people arrived every couple of days to top-up her food and water and to give her a little cuddle. To our relief on both occasions when we returned, there she was sitting in the middle of the courtyard squeaking away (she still hasn’t quite cracked a meow yet).In October we briefly had a second cat. Some good friends were returning to England and were looking for a home for Charbon a very sweet big black fluffy thing. We have more than enough room, so as long as Fifi and he could get along, he was welcome. The fateful day arrived. Charbon, in his box, was duly introduced to his new playmate. She was not very impressed but apart from a quick hiss she just decided to ignore him. So far so good. Charbon was to be let out of his box and I was to give them both some food so that they could have their first dinner for two. However, the cage had been opened before I came out of the front door with the two plates of food and the dinner bell. All I saw of him was his black fluffy tail as he leapt over the fence into the forest and freedom, too quick for Cees to get a photo and never to be seen again. We have gained and lost a number of cats over the last couple of years, but this was the quickest!
So, this is a message to all you visitors to the area, whether you are in Cormatin, Ameungy, Taizé or Cluny and you see a big black fluffy lost-looking cat that answers to the name of Charbon, let us know and we’ll come and get him. In the meantime Fifi is alone with us again, crawling all over Cees’ shoulders, letting him pretend he is a pirate for a few minutes every day - Long John Silver eat your heart out.
For the other blogs on the cats click here, here and here.
La Tuilerie Website
One of Chazelle’s residents is a retired Pâtissier (confectioner) and he of course supplies all the amazing desserts for village parties. He had made the Galettes des Rois for the occasion, beautiful puff pastry pies filled with confectioners custard, very lightly flavoured with almond, nothing like the supermarket cakes which have a heavily flavoured filling that is dense enough to sink a battle ship. But the real excitement about the cake is that there is a “fève” hidden inside it. Fève is just the French word for a broad bean and traditionally a broad bean was put in the cake, but nowadays the fève is a plastic, metal or in our case a porcelain figure roughly the size a of a broad bean.
too late to put it back on the plate, what should I do? I carefully ate around the fève and delicately put the little figure into my napkin waiting to see if anyone had noticed. No one. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted one of neighbours surreptitiously putting a figurine on to the serving plate, so whilst no one was watching, mine went that way too.
At this time of year when you are snowed in, like we have been for the last week, I use the time to try out new recipes and in particular to try and perfect local dishes. The French are big on cheese in all regions but we in Burgundy sadly only have two AOC cheeses, so it is a bit strange that one of the most popular local delicacies is in fact a cheese choux pastry recipe called Gougère.
Le Tour is a national institution if ever there was one. The whole country gets excited as it winds its way through the highways and byways of this great country. The original Tour was done by a group of sixty young men in 1903 who set off on their bikes from Montgeron (just outside Paris) for a six stage 2428 km race round France, but only 21 arrived back in Paris 19 days later. They had no back-up teams, no following trailers, no spare bikes, you feel hungry, you stop and eat the sandwiches which you have prepared yourself that morning, you get a puncture you sit down at the side of the road and fix it, now that is real racing!
Le Tour starts in a different place each year, but for many years has ended in the Champs-Élysées in Paris. The journey is not a continuous one around the roads of France anymore, Le Tour hops and jumps from place to place, sometimes the riders are bussed and sometimes flown between the finish of one day and the start of the next, thus allowing a number of different routes to be chosen each year. But everywhere they go there is a BIG party. Le Tour transforms the French roads and villages it passes through for a brief but exciting moment in time.
To travel in a circle around France it is almost impossible not to travel through Burgundy. In 2006, Le Tour came to Mâcon and turned the city upside down as the riders raced up and down the main boulevard in a very exciting finish to the 18th stage. In 2007 Le Tour came even closer to us by passing through Cormatin itself in the 6th stage and in 2010 Le Tour will be just down the road starting the 7th stage on July 10th in Tournus. We have some trusty campers who come every year to stay with us when Le Tour is nearby and who knows maybe we will see all of you guys and gals again and possibly some new faithful followers next summer!
Taizé is deserted by the monks at then end of each year. Only the monks too old or infirm to travel and a skeleton staff of so called “permanents” (young volunteers who live all year round in Taizé) and one or two other monks remain. The week spanning the new year is the one week in the year that no one can stay in the Communauté. The services still go on, but are usually held in the tiny Romanesque church in the village itself, much as all the winter services used to be up until about 15 years ago. All of the rest of the monks will have gone off to the annual European Taizé meeting. This is all part of the “pilgrimage of trust on earth” initiated by Frère Roger over 30 years ago.
“Many people spread across the earth are taking part in the “pilgrimage of trust” in their daily lives. … Sometimes we have to go towards new horizons, far away or nearby, to discover the hope of the Gospel over and over again. Our world, where so much suffering wreaks havoc, needs women and men who radiate God’s peace by their lives. So let us make courageous decisions to go forward on the road of love and trust.”
Ten permanents and a handful of brothers of the Taizé Community and sisters of St. Andrew also arrived. They have been working with the local representatives to get this event off the ground. The shear logistics of accommodating, transporting and feeding such a large crowd is mind-blowing. One should not underestimate the amount of people involved. Mâcon, the capital of our département Saône-et-Loire, has just over 30,000 inhabitants, so this event will have housed, transported, fed and ministered to a crowd almost the size of the population of Mâcon. Quite incomprehensible.