Christmas Markets

Mères de Noël

We woke up this morning to a lovely crisp, very cold, white day, -4 degrees outside and frost on the fields and trees. It makes a change from the miserable, wet and foggy weather we have been suffering for the last few weeks.

Despite the temperature, it felt so much warmer than previous days and it was a joy to be out and about. So off we went to the annual Mères de Noël exhibition - this year in Massilly and Cortambert.

Massilly village hall

The Mères de Noël are a group of female artists/artisans who display and sell their work somewhere round here, in the lead up to Christmas. They move venues, as the mood takes them and I must say that this year was much nicer than some other years we have seen. The village hall in Massilly, built only about 4 years ago, is an absolutely lovely venue, very light and spacious and the exhibiters had plenty of room to show their products off in their full glory. Cortambert on the other hand was a bit dismal and cramped in comparison, but with the fluffy clouds hanging from the ceiling and the very colourful goods on sale, it still made a pretty sight.

Cortambert village hall

I had a great time looking at all the lovely pottery, jewellery, clothes, leatherwork, wooden toys and glasswork. A great place to get original Christmas presents from.

They are threatening snow tomorrow, so it should be a white day again, but this time we’ll be staying indoors.


La Tuilerie Website

Back to School

New school in the fog

This foggy Saturday morning we went to school. Up early to the market and back in time to join the members of the town council and their families to have an official tour of the new school now that it is well and truly up and running. Cees was invited as the official school photographer, to document the event.

Official photographer

Having visited the school to take photos every weekend for the best part of a year, we were quite familiar with the layout of the place, but getting inside the school, now that it is full of little tables and chairs with posters on the walls conjugating verbs and showing you how to count, it all really came to life. It is a lovely school and one this community will be proud of for years to come.

We were amazed that a new sports area had been installed behind the school, with a two lane running track and a basketball court. This is open to everyone, it is not exclusively for the school children, a great asset for the village and I am sure it will be well used by many.

Infants classroom

One thing that fascinated me was the school dinner menu, do you remember soggy chips, over-boiled sprouts and semolina pudding? Well I certainly do, so how does a selection from this week’s menu sound: Fish terrine, followed by roast veal with chives and green beans or maybe lentil vinaigrette with shallots, filet of hoki with lemon and pumpkin purée. All of course followed by cheese then a dessert. French children are taught all the essential things in life - not just the 3 Rs.

Old School

Those who wanted could have a tour of the old school. Interestingly one of the classrooms of the old school has been rented out to the Chapaize Music School which gives music lessons mainly to children, but if you want to learn to play the accordion or the piano, age is no barrier. The gym is still in use, for the weekly gym class for adults in Cormatin. Originally the new Zumba class was to be held in the gym, but with over 60 enrolled members, the class rapidly became too big and has had to move to St Roch. It is a very nice gym though, so who knows what other classes may enticed to come to town, now we have such a nice venue.

No event of this nature would be complete without a glass of wine and snacks, to celebrate the event - then it was home for a well earned lunch.


La Tuilerie Website

Invasion of Saint-Gengoux-le-National

The army march into town

The townsfolk had been nervous for the past week, as the army undertook manoeuvres in the hills above St-Gengoux. It all came to a head on Friday, when the army finally marched into town, right up to the town hall and they laid claim to the mediaeval city.

Well maybe it wasn’t quite like that.. Let’s start again.

Thursday evening I had a meeting in St-Gengoux with the Office de Tourism and noticed that there were “no parking” signs all over the square outside the town hall, reason given a “Military Ceremony” between 08.00 and 12.00 Friday morning. Whilst there had been a bunch of soldiers on manoeuvres up in the hills round St-Gengoux, no one seemed to be any the wiser about what was going on. Now what is a Military Ceremony when it’s at home anyway? Especially as we never see any soldiers in town - ever.

Nifty footwork

Well we had to go and find out for ourselves didn’t we?

We have learned, over the years, that everything around here starts late, so we went to St-Gengoux at 10.00 in the hope that we wouldn’t have to stand around in the freezing weather too long. Amazingly, there were actually some soldiers, we asked what was going on and we were told there was a military ceremony – ummm yes we can read too – so still none the wiser.

Gradually after being pushed from pillar to post by someone in an official looking uniform and watching the Mayor of St Gengoux being pushed from pillar to post by someone in an official looking uniform, all was revealed. It was the passing out parade for the latest recruits to the Base Petrolièrs Interarmée from Chalon-sur-Saône. Petrol lorry drivers to you and me.

The troop are inspected

I couldn’t get to grips with why they kept doing “attention, present arms, order arms, at ease, attention, present arms, order arms, at ease……” and so it went on ad infinitum. Their drill skills were poor to say the least and the fact that the Colonel of the unit could not even turn through 90 degrees without tangling up his feet did give the show a little bit of an amateur touch. However, when all these young lads and lasses received their official caps, there was a real look of pride on their faces and with one of the lasses in tears, I must admit I felt quite proud for them too.

They then went off to march round the ancient streets, to show off their newly won caps and return to the Town Hall, no doubt for a glass of wine. But by then our feet were so cold we decided to abort mission before frost bite set in and we left them to it.


La Tuilerie Website

Looking for Romanesque Churches

Anzy-le-Duc

Any one who comes to Burgundy will not fail to spot the fact that there is rather a lot of Romanesque architecture in this area. We have visited all the really great churches in the area a number of times, but recently Cees stumbled upon a website which details “all” the bits and bobs of Romanesque architecture that there are to been seen in Burgundy. A Dutch chap, living in The Netherlands, has taken it upon himself to undertake this gargantuan task.

In true van Halderen style, Cees has set up a database for all the churches we have seen, he has added ones we didn’t know existed from Mr van Boxtel’s website and we have been making trips around these churches. Some of the descriptions were rather vague and so we have had to have more clarification from the owner of the website and when we have finally arrived in the village, we have met and chatted to many of the local residents asking where an ex-church or chapel might be in their village.

Our very own Romanesque church - Chazelle

In the course of the search, we have been invited into private houses (for instance the oldest chapel in Cluny) and we have seen some lovely buildings that are just not accessible or open to the public and what’s more, we have come to know even more gems of architecture and snippets of local history.

Whilst Cluny, Tournus, Anzy-le-Duc and Semur-en-Brionnais, might be some of the classic highlights that everyone comes for, we have visited some absolute gems thanks to this website. Our postcode (71460) has the most churches of any postcode in Burgundy, totalling 44 pieces of architecture and we have found and visited them all.

Finding every little church or chapel has been an adventure in its own right, some are derelict, one is in a field covered in a tarpaulin, some have been turned into something else, others have been so far altered from their Romanesque heritage, that you cannot even see that it was built more than a thousand years ago, but every one has been worth the search.

However, one church did prove very difficult to locate. We were told that there was a wall of a church with a fishbone pattern of bricks in Bonnay - just down the road from here. Well Bonnay may not be very big, but I can tell you when you are looking for a bit of wall it becomes a daunting task. We travel though this village quite often and each time, we searched a different corner to see what we could find, all to no avail. But we were not to be defeated. In the end we went to the Mairie and asked them if they knew where this wall was. The mayor was there and he did indeed know what we were talking about. So here you have it, a photo of the oldest church in Bonnay, not quite what we were expecting - I had visions of something a little bit bigger and a little more obviously church-like, but hey we found it and it is there.

The only remains of the oldest church in Bonnay

All in all, we have visited corners of our Département we didn’t know existed and seen some lovely little villages and met some truly interesting people. But so far we have only visited 173 of the 425 that are listed for Saône-et-Loire, so we still have a long way to go.


La Tuilerie Website showing holiday accommodation - not in Romanesque style.

An Old Brick

A brick from La Tuilerie

It all started one Sunday afternoon in August when a charming, elderly gentleman stopped his car by our house and asked if we knew anything about Noël Marembeau.  Well as it happens we do - quite a lot actually - he was the guy who built this place.  Noël Marembeau was born in the Auvergne and came to Burgundy to make his fortune by building and running a tuilerie.  Our visitor had come round because he had found an old brick that had been made here, he had Googled Noël Marembeau, Chazelles and had found a blog Cees had written some time ago and so now he was standing in front of our gate.  The wonders of modern technology ! 

We offered him a “tour” of La Tuilerie to explain it all, but it transpired that he had more than a slight inkling about how things worked.  He then went on to tell us that he was part of a small group that were restoring a old gypsum mine and ovens in Berzé-la-Ville and that was where they had found the brick.  He gave us his telephone number saying we must come round for a visit and left.

Berzé-la-Ville gypsum ovens and mill stones

We bumped into him a couple of weeks later at a wedding and he insisted that we make contact to visit the ovens.  Realising he was being more than just polite, we phoned him a few days later, we made an appointment to visit and then met up with two other members of his team one morning in August.  What a superb visit we had!  The site is only open by appointment, although you can see the ovens through the grills.  So we were some of the privileged few who were treated to a fascinating explanation of how everything worked and how the group had uncovered all the treasures that there were now for us to see.

By the ovens, check out our brick in the trolley

There are a total of 9 ovens. The older ones being batch, similar to the way our tuilerie worked, load up, light the fire, cool, then empty.  But 3 were semi-continuous.  In these ovens, the gypsum was put in, in layers, alternating with layers of wood.  The bottom layer of wood was lit and this “cooked” the gypsum layer above it and in turn this gypsum layer lit the layer of wood above.  As the first layer of wood burned the cooked gypsum descended to the bottom of the oven and could be removed, leaving space at the top for another layer of gypsum and wood and so the process went on for as long as required.

Deep in the mines

After the ovens, we were treated to a visit into the mine itself.  The mine was shut down in about 1900 but was used later by mushroom farmers.  It is carved out of the rock and hence no real need to support the roof - unlike a coalmine.  In the 1960s part of the roof collapsed, killing a mushroom picker and so the mine was closed for safety reasons and has been closed ever since.  As we walked into the mine I kept looking up to make sure all was well and seeing the pile of rock that had caved in, reminded us of the dangers that underground workers face everyday.  We felt very honoured indeed to have been allowed in there.

We were so impressed with what these guys had done over the last 30-odd years, they started with the knowledge that the village had had a mine and ovens and they knew roughly where they were, but they have literally dug everything out of the ground, ounce by ounce, by dedicating every Friday afternoon between April and October to this enormous feat.

We spent hours with them and are immensely grateful for the warm welcome they gave us and the time they spent patiently explaining things.  We left with a cheery, you must come and see our tuilerie and that is exactly what they did last week.  All five members of the team arrived on a Friday afternoon (of course) and we spent a couple of hours showing them round and generally chatting. 

La Tuilerie de Chazelle

We show people around all the time, small groups from the Office de Tourisme, people staying in our gîtes, campers, but this tour had the added pleasure of having a group of people who actually understood how things worked and we discussed with them the finer details the construction and of using an oven of this nature, so it was a shared experience and not just one-way traffic.  Comparing their ovens and the cooking process with ours and the differences in the products that the two systems had to cope with, was very enlightening.

I am sure we will be keeping in contact with these people and we are definitely going to follow the progress of a couple of them who are building their own tuilerie, Roman-style, but that is a subject for a later blog.

La Tuilerie Website gives not only details about the holiday accommodation we have, but also photos of the tuilerie and the euqipment that was here in the past.

What Colour Is a Cow?

Charolais cows in our field

I grew up thinking that cows were covered in black and white blotches, even when I moved to The Netherlands, this seemed to be the natural order of things, but since I have moved to France I know that cows should be white, well a sort of creamy off-white really.  I know this, because we live in Cattle Country - the home of the Charolais. 

Now for those ignorant folks (like me before my enlightenment) who thought that cows were black and white blotchy things, this may come as some surprise and if you are from Scotland where they think that cows are small and hairy things with very long intimidating horns, it may also be difficult to believe, but Charolais are the best beef cattle in the world, no matter what anyone else says and so it is logical that all cows should be large and a creamy off-white.  Have a look at any satellite photo of this area and you will see just how many of the beasts there are in the fields around here.  In fact no self-respecting farmer in south Burgundy, would be seen dead having non-creamy off-white cows in his fields. 

Brown cows in Cluny

However, this weekend, all that changed and quite frankly the shock waves are still wobbling the knees of my bovine friends.  This weekend there were BROWN cows to be seen in great abundance in Cluny.  How is this possible?  How was this allowed?  What was even worse, was that there were farmers from this area parading their brown monsters in a huge tent specially erected for the purpose.

This is the end of civilisation as we know it and next week, I suppose, we will be finding all sorts of multi-coloured things in our fields.

The future?

For our website showing holiday accommodation next to a field with creamy coloured off-white cows in it click here.

Long Walks in the Countryside

Cormatin Randonnée

When the alarm went of at 6 in the morning last Sunday and I heard rain on the windows, my heart sank and I had a distinct feeling of déja vu. You see last Sunday was the Cormatin walks which we help organise every year. We had worked all day Friday and Saturday preparing for the walks, marking the roads, buying and assembling the food that was to be given out at the food posts. Last year was an absolute disaster, not only financially but on the morale of our little club. It rained all day and no one came to walk, well not nobody, there were in fact 39 hardy souls in total, when an average year should yield about 300. We all got very cold, very wet and very miserable, not to mention the 200 Euros loss - money we can ill afford to lose.

Cees and I set off anyway to meet the others and by the time we reached St Roch (the starting post) the rain had stopped. In the end it was an excellent day for walking, a bit cold for us at the food posts, but for the walkers, there was no sun and until about 4 in the afternoon, no rain either. We had a very good year, more than 400 entries, so that should help a bit towards paying for the old aged pensioners’ lunch next year.

The food distribution left a little to be desired though, our president had chosen the typical French model of centralisation, so the sandwiches were prepared in St Roch and the distributed (or not) to the food posts. Not a bad idea, but seeing as even the French government had scrapped the centralisation of food distribution back in the 60’s. it might say something for the efficiency of the system. In the end I had to drive to collect the missing sandwiches, by which time of course, all the walkers had disappeared - ah well better luck next year.

Chardonnay Randonnée

This Sunday the alarm was set for a much more relaxed 7 in the morning, for our favourite walk of the year – the walk in Chardonnay. A misty morning, but the weathermen had promised a nice day with sun in the afternoon. Well they were wrong, it turned out to be a beautiful day with sun all day and by the time we were half an hour into our two hour walk, we were sweltering. Never mind, it was all worth it.

I always marvel at the organisation of this walk, I have absolutely no idea how many walkers they have, but if someone said 5 or 6 thousand, it would not surprise me. The photo is of one of the food posts and everyone got a sandwich ! Decentralisation was the key - maybe our president could learn a trick or two from them…

Food distribution on the Chardonnay walk

Anyway, we had a superb walk through stunning landscape and we came home and slept in the garden – 25 degrees in the shade and it is the end of October – now that is the way to spend a Sunday.


La Tuilerie Website gives details of our holiday accommodation, ideal for a walking holiday of all degrees of difficulty.

Mur D’Escalade

I’ve mentioned the climbing wall in the Bois Dernier quarry that the tourist tax has paid for, before, but we noticed the other day, that everything is now, well and truly up and running. All the signs are up, guiding climbers to a total of 10 climbs, 5 for beginners, 3 for advanced climbers and 2 for experts. Not to mention of the course the children’s play ground where we had so much fun, on the little assault course, back at the beginning of the year . There are also signs up about the wildlife you can see when you are there and a lot of details on the geological background of the rock formations.

Well we just had to try it all out. Now everyone who knows us, knows just how much we love climbing up high. It was all so tempting, but I didn’t have the right equipment no ropes, no clips etc.

What the heck - I just had to have a go...

And what a wonderful view from the top, you can even see La Tuilerie in all its glory.

It is a much quicker way up the hill to Taizé that via the path. Maybe I shall recommend it to our guests as an invigorating way to get to church in the morning...



La Tuilerie de Chazelle holiday accommodation near Taizé, Cluny and Tournus, not to mention a lovely climbing wall just down the road.

If you go into the woods today….

I am normally woken up by the bells of Taizé, but the other morning I had a rude awakening to the sound of heavy machinery. Yes we hear tractors when there is haymaking or hedge cutting, but nothing like this noise and in any case, all of that has been done for the year, so I had no idea what was going on. While we sat down to breakfast, we could see some ominous lights approaching the house through the woods. I went to investigate and peering through the trees on the edge of the forest I saw a huge machine chewing up and spitting out trees.

I then went into the forest to investigate properly and saw that this machine was chopping down every tree smaller than a certain diameter, presumably to bring more light and life into our little bit of the woods. I must say that it was a lot more effective than we were when we were allocated a section of the forest to cut down for winter fuel. A one off experience – never to be repeated, and even though that was way back in the winter of 2005/6, I can still feel all those aches and pains. So who knows maybe we can get some cheap and painless wood for the winter ... dream on !

La Tuilerie Website

We’re on the Map

We have been very active in the local business network now for about 4 or 5 years. This includes compiling and issuing a little brochure advertising all the businesses affiliated to the organisation and managing the triptych just next to Cormatin Château, which has a little explanation of each business as well as map locating each business.

A little team is responsible for keeping the brochure up to date, which we are part of and this year I helped to design the new cover - I think we did a very good job actually.

But the triptych has been the province of someone else in the organisation who seemed to make a meal out of ordering and placing new names as businesses came and removing old names as businesses went. We were promised that our business would be placed on the triptych as soon as we joined and whilst I don’t really expect anything from it, it has niggled me slightly that nearly 5 years later we were still not there.

Well this year, the “brochure team” was put on the case and we have come up with a new style triptych, to match the new style borchure. We have had many hiccoughs along the way, constant errors in the copy, chasing businesses for their details, inept printers and then the panels were delivered too small for the triptych (whoops! – who measured that one?) but last Saturday, we were up our ladders bashing the old triptych to bits and gluing the shining new ones in place.

So at last, La Tuilerie de Chazelle is officially on the map !

Our business website

Day out in the Brionnais

Last week we went to a client’s house to install a piece of equipment. To ensure it was working we needed to go back to their house after a few hours. Now you can’t charge someone for just sitting around waiting, so what better a chance than to just clock off and do some sightseeing.

First stop lunch.

Well if you are in the Brionnais, on a Wednesday, the only place to eat is Le Tour D’Auvergne in Saint Christophe en Brionnais. What a lunch - for what a price. We don’t even bother visiting the cattle market any more (which is well worth the visit by the way) we just go there for the lunch.

With hours to spare we went off on a Romanesque church tour. Along with the Clunisois, the Brinnoais houses a very dense population of Romanesque churches. This day we managed a whole host a little gems, but you can’t beat Anzy-le-Duc and Semur en Brionnais.

We had a great day out, but when you get down to it…. no day out is complete without a ride on a giant turkey.



La Tuilerie Website

Journées du Patrimoine

Every year on the second weekend in September, France (or at least Burgundy) celebrates its architectural heritage by opening buildings to the pubic that are not normally open. We love this weekend, as the local Office de Tourisme organises a walk on the Sunday to one of the villages in our canton and a local historian explains the history and heritage of the village.

Well this year it was Cormatin’s turn. The walk started at Saint Roch, via the church in Cormatin (not exceptionally interesting but there is a mediaeval Pieta that is worth a look) then on to Chazelle via L’Hermitage.

Chazelle on the other hand, has a lot to offer: the lavoir; the water mill (the first electricity generator for miles around); the church (a Romanesque church and part of the Clunisien order) and of course La Tuilerie. Yes this year we were part of the local heritage walk!

Because Paris has its Jardin des Tuileries, many foreigners (and possibly some French people too) think that tuilerie means garden. Actually a tuilerie is a place that make “tuiles” - roof tiles. In our case, this is a slight misnomer. as our little factory mainly made bricks and in fact until a couple of weeks ago we didn’t have any proof that any roof tiles had been made here at all. But now we are the proud owners of two roof tiles stamped “Noël Marembeaud, à Chazelles”, so we can officially claim the title of tuilerie.

The real significance of our property is, that it was pat of the mini-industrial revolution that took place all along the Saône valley, taking in much of the Grosne valley as well in the 1800s. There were numerous tuileries, briquetteries, water mills (for flour and electricity) and spinning mills. Many still exist in some form or another, but many have been lost to decay, which is why we love showing people around our tuilerie, because even though it is not in working order, there still remains enough to fully explain how it all works and it is preserving a bit of history that could so easily be lost.

So that was my bit of fun this morning, showing 20 or so visitors around our little piece of local heritage.


La Tuilerie Website

Taizé Beamed Across France

It is Sunday today. I always make a full breakfast on a Sunday and I wanted to be in Taizé by 09.00, so I had to get up very early, by my standards. This morning’s service from the Church of Reconciliation was to be televised live. The service was due to start on TV at 10.45 which I found a bit odd, as it normally starts at 10.00. Anyway, at 09.00 the place was heaving with camera crews and technicians. There were at least 5 big lorries outside the church and inside that were cameras, lighting, scaffolding and who knows what other stuff, not to mention the tons of extra equipment lying around waiting to be installed or waiting in the wings just in case.

On France 2, Sunday morning is dedicated to religion. The morning starts at 08.30 with Buddhism, it moves on to Islam, Judaism and then finally the programme I had been waiting for “Le Jour du Seigneur” which covers a Catholic mass from somewhere in France and a couple of short pieces of background. Today it was Taizé’s turn.

Whilst hanging out the washing in the garden, I heard the bells start at 10.00 and they rang until 10.10, so it appeared that the service had been slightly delayed by all the bustle. Off to the TV. I had to wait until 10.45 before the “live” service started - not so live then. But before the actual service, there was an interesting little film about Taizé, interviewing some of the young people who are there for a short stay, some young people who are staying longer - the so-called permanents and a couple of the monks.

The televised service was a normal Sunday morning communion service, but today everything was in French. One thing was different though. Frère Alois has taken to giving “meditations” during the Thursday evening services and he did that this morning as well. I am not sure that this really adds to the service, as in my view, it takes away from the international nature of the whole thing. If you speak French you are OK, but if not, you are excluded, which I would have thought was against everything the Taizé services stand for.

After the service, Frère Alois was interviewed outside the church. It was interesting to hear his views on various things and hear his memories of the earlier years of Taizé and there was some very nice old film footage.

All in all, it was fascinating for me to have an overview of the service and how things operate. When you are down on the floor, you only see your own bit of the church and you miss out on the bigger picture. So I am glad I watched it on TV and not in the church itself, even if I did miss out being on TV yet again.

La Tuilerie Website

Cormatin School Kids back to School Again

All the school kids in France return to school from their summer holidays on the same day “La Rentrée”. This year it was Tuesday 4th September. Not something I have ever paid much attention to.

But, we have been waiting for this particular rentrée for the last two years.

It was not far off two years ago that Cees was asked by the mayor of Cormatin to take photos of the new school as it was built and this week the school finally opened its doors. Cees has been taking photos at all stages and from all angles and has built a magnificent record for the village. I have just been tagging on for the ride and to play with some pictures.

So here you have it, Cormatin school rises out of the ground.



Happy new school year to all the kids in their new school.

La Tuilerie Website

Magic Cats

My Mum bought me a cat the other day. We were in Lys, a very small village just down the road and we were doing a tour of all the artisans. There is the lady who makes woven tapestries and runs courses, the guy who makes the weirdest shoes in the world, the man who makes sculptures for driftwood and silver, the man who makes both wrought iron and cast bronze sculptures and the potter. Not to mention the lovely little church with frescos on the wall, the swimming museum and one of the cleanest lavoirs around here. That is an awful lot to pack into a village that is probably smaller than Chazelle, but it makes for a very interesting visit.

While we were at the potter’s, I saw this really cute little cat in amongst a lot of mice and a piece of pottery that can only best be described as something you would not be surprised to see in a gynaecologist’s office. All that combined with the little notice saying “SALIÈRES … MAGIQUES” and I was hooked. You must admit that the cat is rather cute, but how many cute little ornaments does one need in a lifetime? Well this chap is a salt cellar and a magic one at that !

The rather weird looking, cut-through, piece of pottery explains how it works. You turn your cat upside down and he has a hole at the bottom of a conical chute. You pour salt into the chute and it fills the body of the cat. You then return your cat to the upright position and the salt settles in the body. If you want you use the salt you hold the cat hole downwards and you shake it up and down and salt jumps out of the body, through the hole and on to your plate. Now that’s magic!

Fifi is not so sure about this cat shaking business. I found her hiding in a barrel, poor little thing.











La Tuilerie Website