Evening Classes

Forum des Associations - Cluny Abbey

When we first arrived here, we were baffled as to how to find information about evening classes or clubs. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to how things operate. In fact, evening classes as such just don’t exist. You can’t go to the local library and get a list of what’s being taught and when and when you ask the neighbours about classes, you are met with blank looks. Things are different in France and it has taken us some years to sort out how to find the information we have been looking for.

Virtually all (what I would call in English, English) “evening classes” are run by small associations. So for instance, if you want to learn a language you find a language association and see what languages they offer, if they don’t offer the one you want to learn, you look for another language association based in a different town. If you want to learn Judo, you look for a judo association, karate – a karate association, tai-chi – a tai-chi association, lacework – a lacework association, flower arranging, cookery, art classes etc etc etc the list goes on.

You find flyers for these associations around the place, mostly by accident, at this time of year, but the biggest way of finding classes, is by word of mouth, which is what makes finding what you are actually looking for, very difficult indeed.

La Spirale d'or - Tai-chi club

The last couple of years we have noticed that in Cluny they have a Forum des Associations on one Saturday morning a year. All the associations set up stall in the cloister of the abbey and you can browse around to see what Cluny has to offer, from archery to theatre groups, from patchwork to ji-jutsu, from a brass band to a moneyless exchange system. All manner of things in fact.

I’ve signed up for tai-chi again this year and I am giving the moneyless exchange system a go - who knows what that will entail. It looks like I’ll be working for griottes (morello cherries) when I get started, hopefully they’re not real ones - I’m not too partial to fruit. I’ll keep you posted on my earnings when I find out how it all works.

Another advantage to the Forum des Associations is that you can sneak into the abbey for free, if you know the way. Now would we do that?

For information on our holiday accommodation still paid for in Euros click here.

Correction to my previous post

Belleville

It has been pointed out to me by two avid readers, that neither Jean Paul II nor Mother Teresa are in fact saints yet.  Jean Paul should make it this October or next April according to different sources, but as yet, Mother Teresa has a way to go.  Whilst she has been beatified, for her to be up for canonisation, a second miracle still has been attributed to her intervention.  So there remains the question, what is a statue of her doing in the church in Belleville, if she isn’t actually a saint?  I can feel another blog coming on..

A day out in the Beaujolais

Mother Teresa

It was a glorious day and so we set off into the Beaujolais on yet another Romanesque church hunt. While Cees photographs every Romanesque, pseudo-Romanesque, neo-Romanesque and non-Romanesque feature that a church has to offer, I get to sit around and look at bits and pieces. The saints in French churches particularly fascinate me. When I first arrived, I could hardly name any of them, but over the years I have come to recognise all the common ones, St Joan of Arc, St Anthony, St Joseph, St Curé, St Teresa and I can now tell the difference between St Michael and St George - pretty tricky as they are both normally killing dragons.

I have taken loads of photos of them over the years, partly as a record of some of the nicer examples, but partly to log who I have actually seen. It is not often these day that I get to see a statue of a saint that I have never seen before, but this trip was one of those occasions. I was completely amazed at this statue, I recognised her from the other end of the church, one of the most “modern” or should I say “new” saints there is. There she was, next door to her namesake, Mother Teresa herself complete with her iconic poor sisters of Calcutta style sari. It has got me wondering when I will see my first St John Paul II.

Clochmerle pressoir

After that bit of saint hunting, we headed off into the Beaujolais hills looking for a picnic spot. We saw a sign to Vaux-en-Beaujolais and decided to visit the town. This town is famous for being the real-life version of the fictional town Clochemerle. Having said that, why any town would want to associate itself with a pissoire (urinal) is beyond me. Anyway, when we got there, we headed for the church to see the (in)famous pissoire. We searched all round the building, there were talking flower pots (I kid you not) and a pressoire (wine press) covered in flowers but not a pissoire in sight. I was beginning to wonder if I had misinterpreted the story, maybe it was an argument over the village pressoire and not pissoire that the book was about, but I was sure I was right.

Clochmerle Pissoire

I was beginning to feel a little let down by the town’s hype when we stumbled upon the pissoire itself, conventiently located next to some picnic tables where we duly had our lunch, with a beautiful view of the pissoire on one side and a more beautiful view over the Beaujolais hills and vineyards on the other. The only thing missing was a bottle of wine to wash down our mousse de vollaile, rosette and brie de Meaux, maybe next time…

 
For information on our holiday accommodation, not far from the Beaujolais click here.

Train spotting

We were up at the crack of dawn Sunday morning and we went off to a railway bridge in Rully. We were going train spotting. When we arrived and before I could get my camera out a TGV went past, blast missed it. Then a goods train came past, which I dutifully photographed. But that was not why we were here.

We were on a steam mission.

Since The Mistral 241P-17 had had her accident a couple of years ago, we thought we would never see a steam train on the rails round here again. But this year she is up and back in business and Sunday morning was the day that she passed near to us. Although I had my doubts when the alarm went off at 06.30, when we heard her toot in the distance, I knew it would be worth it and it was.

The stretch where we waited was long and straight, to give us a good view of her arriving. We saw the smoke a good 2 or 3 minutes before we could see any semblance of a train and then she arrived.

I had forgotten just how exciting steam trains are, they are not machines at all, they are magnificent living creatures, puffing out smoke and fire. I had set the camera on multi-shot, but I must admit I bottled out that the last minute and jumped back when she went right under the bridge, so there is no photo of the cloud that engulfed us as she thundered underneath. And that was it - with a cloud of smoke there she was - gone - on her way to the Jura.

I must be a bit of an anorak because I will certainly be back next year if she is passing.







For a website about holiday accommodation near a place where a steam train can be seen from time to time click here.

Fame at last - well almost

What's that?

As regular readers of my blog will know, I have almost been on TV a number of times since we have come to live in France. Although I appreciate that this is a lot nearer than most people get to being on TV, it has somewhat disappointed me that it has always been “almost”. But now I know why. They have been saving me for the BIG ONE.

This Tuesday we had bagsied our seats at the restaurant La Petite Auberge just before they opened at 12.00 and we were just hovering around waiting, making sure no impudent tourist would steal "our" place on the terrace, when I saw a car coming up the main street, with a large blue blob on top of it. No sooner than I could think to myself “What’s that?” when I realised I had been Google mapped !

Fame at last?

Yes folks, when the new version of Cluny comes on-line on Street View, there I’ll be, staring at the camera like a dimwit. I’ll keep you posted.


For a look at the website, showing our property which can be seen on Google Street View (in the distance, because we are not actually on a proper street) click here.

Givers and takers

In our line of work you meet all sorts of people. The vast majority are very nice people, people we love to have here, people who are friendly and polite, fun and interesting. But sadly, every so often we have “takers”. Not only do they actually take our time and possessions, but they also take our energy as well. Constantly having to be aware that we mustn’t give even a teeny weenie bit, otherwise we will be taken for a very big ride. Every time I am surprised by these people, even though they make their intentions very clear from the start. We will say something like “Please don’t drive on to the campsite the ground it rather soft at the moment”  and that will be met with “I am only going to empty the car, then I will be off” and yet again, we know what we are in for - a week or so of “takers”. The slightest favour turns into a demand for more and more, spoilt little children who have never learned any manners or consideration for others, they take and take and take.

This last fortnight we have had such a couple on our site. We did them a favour when they first arrived. We do this sort of thing all the time, someone forgets to bring something with them, we lend them ours, someone has a problem with the car, we phone and translate so that the mechanic and visitor can communicate, and many small things inbetween.  We don’t expect anything in return, except a thank you and a little respect, we are after all just human. I won’t go into the gory details, but the favour we did this time was rather big and it actually cost us money, time and effort. Even so, we did it willingly and so we have given. On the return front, we did not even receive a thank you and I must say, even though it shouldn’t have, that did irritate me, as I said before, I'm only human. All the time they have been camping on our site, he has been very unpleasant, probably using his skills as a psychologist to manipulate us into getting what he wanted. I always thought that being a counsellor was a caring profession, I always thought that if you had your own practise you at least cared about other people, but in this case I have been very wrong.

Normally we would let it drop, life is too short to get wound up, but last night when they came to pay for their stay, we suggested that they should contribute to our expenses. Without even knowing how much we were suggesting, they refused point blank. Maybe they were afraid to ask how much it had cost, maybe they thought that for 7 Euros a night they were entitled to everything or maybe they just enjoyed the “taking”. Who knows what was going on in their minds.

This sorry episode ends here and now.  I am putting into practice something I was told a long time ago: "the events and people in your past can only affect you today, if you allow them to”. So Mr G K (no hyphen) H of somewhere near Rotterdam, to put an end to your taking from me, I give you the 20 Euros we were hoping you would reimburse us with. I hope that you set it aside to buy something that will give you pleasure, because I fear that all of the things you take from people like us, give you no pleasure at all. 

That's it - one taker sucessfully exorcised from my life.


For information on our campsite and gites, which are now restored to being full of lovely people, click here.

We have “weather” round here

I have often said that we have real weather here, no wishy-washy winters and summers for us, oh no, we have hot or we have cold, we have rain or we have dry, we have wind or we have wind still and last weekend we had the mother of all thunder storms.

This storm went on all day long and we had rain, after rain, after rain. In total we had 82mm or about 3 1/4 inches for you non-metrics. This is about one and a half times the amount of rain we should expect in either July or in August and all that within about twelve hours.

The wave of thunder storms that tore over the area could be seen in all directions and we were really lucky we were not right in the midst of any of them - Bissy sous Uxelles (a couple of villages down from us) was not so lucky. These pictures show you what happens to a church when it gets hit by lightning. The bell is still hanging on by a thread of burned out wood.

Before

After

After

On the map

The Office du Tourisme has just started giving away street maps of Cormatin and Saint Gengoux le National – although why anyone would need a map for these villages is a mystery that I won’t delve into.

And guess what?? We are on it !! OK, maybe not quite in the right position, but near enough to be famous.


For the a website showing holiday accommodation that is "on the map" click here.

Steam Day

I love steam engines, they live and breathe, not like something that runs on diesel, petrol or electricity which just chunters away and does it’s job either noisily or smellily or in total silence. Those modern impostors may be as efficient or even more efficient than their steam equivalent, but they are not “real”.


Every year there is a steam day in Digoin, a lovely little town who’s claim to fame is the bridge over the Loire which lets the Canal du Centre continue its path unhindered. That was just the other day and so off we went. We stopped in Salornay sur Guye at the butcher to get some delicious mousse de canard, dried sausage and salads and together with a baguette from La Delice de Cormatin our picnic was ready.


The bench on the canal bridge/aqueduct was just the place to eat our picnic and then we went on to the steam engines and we weren’t disappointed.

The pictures speak for themselves.

Just an aside, we were almost on TV again. This time the cameraman missed his chance to interview us, he possibly found the steam engines more interesting.


La Tuilerie Website

Restaurant Update

La Petite Auberge - Cluny

So much has changed on the restaurant/bar front this winter, I really thought it time I posted on my blog just what’s been going on.

La Petite Auberge and the Bosphore kebab restaurants in Cluny and the restaurant of Les Blés D’Or in Cormatin are all still in the same hands fortunately, so there is at least some stability in our lives ! But Café de la Poste and La Terasse in Cormatin and Café du Centre in Cluny have all changed hands and La Grange Finot in Bray has moved to Cluny under the new name of La Régalade.

La Terrasse - Cormatin

Firstly La Terasse. Sadly the previous owner has become too ill to carry on working and the restaurant/bar/café has been sold to a young local couple who are serving good “simple” French food. We have eaten there once and they were very welcoming, efficient and the food was very good indeed, for a reasonable price. The terrace has been full almost every day since they opened, so let’s hope it continues to be a success for them.

Café de la Poste - Cormatin

Café de la Poste, was always a bit of a mystery to us, was it a bar or a café, did it serve food or not? Well now it is very clear it is a bar/café and serves snack-like food. They have all the usual snacky kind of things, croque monsieur, frites, quiche, sandwiches etc and they even had “fish and chips” and although I can’t really comment (being allergic to fish) it looked pretty much like the real thing to me. The owner is the husband of the lady who runs the newsagent in town and he mans the bar with their numerous children. They are not truly up to speed as yet, they still have a few logistics problems to iron out. Who takes what order, at which counter are food and drinks orders accepted and who gets served first are issues they should address, as well as the general speed of service. But having said that, the food was good and the service very friendly and it is great to have a place where you can eat something that is not a full meal in town.

Café du Centre- Cluny

Café du Centre, Chez Sissis (Cluny) does appear to have changed hands, we noticed the changes just after Christmas and it seems a bit late now to ask the only remaining, original waitress after 7 months under the new regime. So I will go on gut feeling and say, they have new owners and if not new owners, they have changed their way of working and staff enough to give a noticeable new feeling to the place. The food is more restricted, but the quality is just as good. Instead of one plat du jour every day they have 4 per week, which, if you only want to eat there occasionally, gives ample choice. I do however, miss the opportunity to have one of their “tartes” or “salades” whenever I feel like it. The additional menu is restricted to croque monsieur/madame, steak or steak haché and possibly one or two other things, this is over and above the 4 entrées (which include salads) and the four main courses written up on the blackboards. We are getting used to it, but it isn’t quite the “same”.

La Régalade - Cluny

La Grange Finot in Bray, our favourite, special eating-out place closed early this year and we were very disappointed to see them go, although we knew Serge was opening up a restaurant in Cluny. We have eaten at his new restaurant La Régalade and the standard is certainly the same as before, although I get the feeling the choice is more limited. We were told he changes the menu every 10 days or so, so for that “special meal”, you don’t have to worry that you will have to eat the same thing every visit. The restaurant is certainly more cosy than at the old Grange Finot and we will be going there again, but we do miss having it next door.

So that’s the local restaurant gossip for the time being, there has been an "all change" in Chapaize too, but that will have to wait for another time !


For information about the holiday accommodation we have, very close to all these lovely restauarnts click here.

Concerts, concerts and more concerts

The new banner announces our concerts

Summer brings with it a host of music festivals in Burgundy. We are heavily involved in the Guitar en Cormatinois festival which this year is fortunately going back to its roots and each concert will have at least one guitarist in it. The series is nearing its end - there are only two more concerts to go and the season is going very well indeed. Concerts one and three were sold out, leaving us volunteers to enjoy the music from outside the church and concert two only had a few spaces left empty. It is a combination of the venue being fixed in the church in Chazelle – superb acoustics, the start times being nice and early (19.30 for the Saturday concert and 17.30 for the Sunday concert) and of course returning to having guitars in abundance, that has made this season a success. We will have to see if we actually break even or not this year as we have lost a lot of state subsidy, so fingers crossed that this festival can continue for years to come.

Biréli Lagrène in Trivy

The season is well under way as well in Chapaize where we of course enjoyed the annual Roundalay concert - a Dutch a cappella choir. We have seen Biréli Lagrène again this year in the Jazz in Trivy concert series - always a treat and a couple of weekends ago we went to a concert by a swing band in Cluny at Le Potot Gourmand who are on of the venues for the association Jazz etc. The concert was on the pricey side, but the music made up for that. It was all very accessible jazz, nothing too avant garde.

Michel Bonnet Combo in Cluny

But it is not only the professionals that give concerts, the choir of St Ythare gave a couple of concerts, we saw the one in the lovely, if peculiarly shaped, church in Savigny-sur-Guye and they did themselves proud, well done lads and lasses ! At the moment we have campers from the UK who will be performing in St Gengoux church this coming Thursday, they are part of a very new amateur choir from Oxford and from what I’ve heard, it should be worth a visit.

St Ythaire Choir

So you can see that we really are spoilt for choice at the moment and throughout this summer, I rather selfishly think that they should spread the concerts out over the year a bit more, but then I suppose it would only be us residents that would be able to enjoy all this good music.





For information on holiday accommdation in the heart of this musical area click here.

A restaurant you shouldn’t go to

We decided to go out today, but as it rained all morning we didn’t leave until just before lunch.  So our lunch venue had to be relatively near home.  We have had mixed experience with L’Auberge du Grison in Prayes and so decided to give them another try.  The first time we went in December 2005 the food and ambience were fantastic, but I have a feeling that the owners have changed since then.

The last time we went to the restaurant, the owner was brusque to rude and the waitress was hopeless to appalling, but it was a busy Sunday lunchtime in summer and we decided they were just having an off day. 

Today we were the only lunch guests and we were greeted somewhat brusquely by the owner, but the weather was miserable, so what do you expect.  I decided to have steak haché (minced steak patty) and Cees wanted the plat de jour.  My request was greeted with “That is normally for children” which made me feel like replying, “Well why is it on the grown-up’s menu then”, but I decided better of it.  After a long discussion about the fact that it was only 100g (the normal weight for a steak haché in my book) I agreed to order it and asked for it to be cooked rare, which was drew the response, “It’s a burger, you can’t cook burgers rare”, “Oh so it’s not a steak haché then?” I replied.  “It says steak haché burger quite clearly on the menu” she retorted.  Now I must say, with my experience in the food industry, I think that there is about 0% steak in a burger no matter what it’s called, but I let it drop and ordered it anyway.  Cees’ request for the plat du jour was greeted with, “So you don’t want the menu then?”  “No” he confirmed.

Not a very pleasant interaction with the dear lady, but the meal arrived and the burger was OK and Cees’ food was very good.  Now on to the bill.  We were charged 13.70 Euros for Cees’ plat du jour which I queried as that was more than the menu de jour at 12.50 Euros which had a salad to start and a dessert afterwards as well.  We were told in no uncertain terms that if you order à la carte you paid a higher price, end of discussion.

So in return, here is some nice publicity for this restaurant.  They are rude, inefficient and cheat you out of money - don’t eat there.  But it looks like the locals already know this, we were the only people who had lunch on what should have been a very busy working day.

Internet

I can remember back in about 1991 or 92, when I worked for Unilever Engineering in The Netherlands and shared an office with André, I was introduced to the Internet. One day André told me there was something I just had to see. So off he took me to the huge laboratory library where there was a computer that had “Internet Access”. He showed me a search engine (probably Alta Vista, but I can’t really remember) and he said all I had to do was type in anything I wanted information on and the world would open to me. I did ask him what I could possibly want to know, that wasn’t in a book in the library and he was a bit stumped for a minute then he said “the results of a sailing competition”. So we searched and sure enough we found the results of a sailing competition in The Antilles. I must say I was completely under-whelmed and wondered why anyone would want to pay a small fortune for “Internet Access”.

Roughly twenty year later, our “Internet Access” has been cut off and I am lost and I mean truly lost. Our Internet connection went down at about 20.00 last Sunday (yes I can tell it that accurately - which shows just how addicted I am) and we still have no connection, one week later. I am frantic. We have been begging and borrowing computer and WiFi connections for the last week (a BIG thank you to all who have helped so far) and I reflect on how my attitude has changed over the last twenty years. My first port of call when I want to know something is to “Google” it, not look at the brochure we picked up last week that lies on a pile in the living room - that is too far to walk and not to go to the multitude of books we have on our shelves – that takes too long or even pop into the local library – that takes even longer, no, I get all my information these days from the Internet and being cut off has been a sobering lesson on how dependant I am to this technology.

It is rather reminiscent of the time I lost my watch and ended up looking at my empty wrist every ten seconds, getting more and more wound up with each look at the empty place where that hallowed thing had been. It took a while, but now I don’t mind that I have no watch. But there again, that was thirty years ago, so I have got used to it. I do wonder how long will it take me to stop re-setting the “Box” every time I walk past, in the vain hope that it might stop flashing “PPP” and give me the time, thus showing we are back “On-line”.



So apologies to all of you out there, from here in cold turkey land (and not the yummy stuff you have in the days following Christmas) - I won’t be answering my mail as quickly as normal, let’s hope the slow wheels of France Telecom will get me back to normal soon or maybe like my watch, I may just get used to not having the Internet anymore.

EDIT: As of late last night we are ON-LINE again - life is really wonderful isn't it !


La Tuilerie Website

Open evening at a salmon smokery.

Just two of the salmon delicacies on offer

I mentioned last year that, during July and August, the tourist office in St Gengoux-le-National was having tasting sessions for tourists of some local produce. We had wine from local producers and various other local delicacies, which was when we heard about a smokery in St Gengoux run by a Scottish couple. Last weekend they had an open evening where certain people were invited to taste their products and enjoy a glass of wine with them, in the garden of their home/business.

Their biggest seller is smoked Scottish salmon, but they also do smoked duck and smoked Bresse chicken. The smoking is very delicate and from connoisseurs of the salmon, I understand that their product is significantly better than any other smoked salmon available in the locality. Their business has really blossomed in the year it has been going and they have managed to create a good solid customer base in the locality.

Drinks and smoked salmon in the garden

Sadly rain stopped play a little earlier than expected, but we had still had a very enjoyable evening meeting other gîte and bed and breakfast owners and others from the local business community.

Congratulations go to Ken and Jill Smith, thank you for an lovely evening and long may your success continue.



For more details of their products click here.

And for details of our gîtes not far from this excellent smokery click here.

Artisans and Artisans

Pascal Ponsard's silk scarves

In France, May is loaded with bank holidays and this year was no exception. But while the shops may shut down, it is a great time of year for arts and crafts fairs and boy have there been some crackers this year. The biennial arts and crafts fair in Tournus, definitely one of the biggest and most professional around here. There were 5 different venues around the town each containing stalls from jewellery makers, to wood cutters and potters to silk painters including our favourite, Pascal Ponsard, who is based here in Cormatin and makes absolutely beautiful silk painted scarves, everyone needs one !

Cormatin Patchwork display

Cees with his paintings

Of course Cormatin was not to be outdone and we have had two very impressive shows. Firstly the patchwork display and then La Tuilerie’s very own artist, Cees, exhibited his paintings in the artwork exhibition. As always, I am impressed with his display of work. However, the invitation he posted on his Facebook page caused endless confusion and we had people turning up at La Tuilerie, thinking he was exhibiting his paintings here - ah well next year maybe.

L'Eglantine festival - St Martin du Tartre

Last weekend we went to the annual Eglantine (wild rose) festival which takes over the whole of the village of Saint Martin du Tartre. Every courtyard and barn was full of stalls selling all sorts of new age and bio things, from crystals to angel contacts and bio crêpes with very non-bio-Nutella to open forums, discussing things like the future of our planet. I hesitate to say something for everyone, but it was certainly worth a visit.

Burmese tuilerie

Finally we went to the opening of a Burmese photo exhibition in Cluny and what did we find there? A photo of a Tuilerie Burmese style. How is that to make you feel at home.


La Tuilerie's very own Website not quite in Burma, but with a tropical feel at the beginning of June.

Heavenly Horses and a Mexican Bullfight.

Medieval horses

I was looking in the paper last Sunday morning and saw an article announcing the annual festival Chevaux en Ciel (Horses in Heaven) which said that there would be medieval games and Cossacks doing acrobatics on horseback. Now what else did we have to do on a Sunday afternoon? Unfortunately there was no mention of where this spectacle was to take place, so I passed the paper to Cees to see if he could figure out where to go. “Ah, there’s a three star Romanesque church there which we haven’t seen yet” - apparently Ciel is the name of a village in the Bresse not too far from Chalon – and well, if there is a three start church we haven’t seen, even having to watch horses won’t stop him from going, so off we went. We should have know better…

After being rather bored for half an hour or so, looking at horses and then eating a hot dog, we spotted the medieval section of the event which turned out to be people wandering round in medieval costumes with horses in tow, not exactly what I had imagined. We gave up waiting for the Cossacks and left for the three start church, which was in fact quite interesting. But the reason that this turned into a worthwhile day out, was neither of these things.

Animals abound

On the way to Ciel we passed through a village called Damerey and noticed a house which had a number of “animals” outside it. Unusual, but not really worth a stop and look. But, on the way back, we saw the house from a different angle and realised that there was more to it than initially met the eye. Someone had turned the back “garden” into a Spanish hacienda with a bullfight going on in it ! There were bulls and matadors everywhere, not to mention the numerous beautifully clad ladies, the flamingos, peacocks and cacti.

Mexican bullfight in the Bresse

Whilst photographing the whole thing, the owner came out and we had a chat with him. He has made all the models himself in reinforced concrete, since he retired in the late 80s. He previously worked supervising construction sites, mostly out in Mexico, hence the Hispanic theme. At 87 he is very fit and well and puts it all down to getting up at 6.00am and keeping active. I’m not sure if it is a wonder to behold or a dreadful eyesore, but whatever it is, it was great fun to look at and it was really interesting to chat to the artist himself.

It got me thinking though, Cees used to be into reinforced concrete and he is up at 6.00am most days, I wonder if he is going to start making models for our garden?


La Tuilerie Website

Weird Weather

Stranded cruise ships in Mâcon

This last year has given us some weird weather, but the last couple of weeks have been the weirdest. I blame the Bank Holidays, so far in May we have had three Bank holidays and we aren’t even half way through yet and as everyone knows, it always rains on a Bank Holiday.

Last week’s rain beat all records. We had about two months’ worth of rain in a couple of days and there was flooding everywhere. Even now - a week after the rain has stopped - the waters in some rivers are still rising. The news was telling us last night that Paris is under threat as the water is finally making its way to the Seine.

Stranded boats on Canal du Centre

But round here we have heard conflicting stories. Twenty five cruise boats on the Saône and Rhone have been stranded at various places because the water is so high that they can’t get under the bridges, but then I saw an article saying that the Canal de Centre has gone dry. How is that possible with so much water? Well it’s simple, they weight of ground water has caused one of the banks to collapse, filling the canal and blocking the flow of water, so one side of the canal has literally run dry. They have no idea when they will have the boats afloat again but it won’t be very soon.

So if you were thinking of a canal boat holiday, think again. Why not come to us instead !


La Tuilerie Website

A few "firsts" to start the week

The Taizé organ

The alarm woke me at 06.30 - yes I know, very uncivilised, but it was a big day for me – and I was out of the door before 07.30 waiting for my lift. A detour via the boulangerie to get croissants which we ate in the car, then on to Taizé for my first ever early morning service. I have always said I should go, just to see what it was like, but well mornings and me don’t really go together. During the service came my second first of the day. I actually heard someone play the organ ! I have wondered what it sounded like since it was installed 4 years ago – it has never been played on a Sunday when I have been there for some reason. To be honest, it was not really worth waiting for, but then again, I have at least heard it being played.

The morning service starts between 08.20 and 08.30 and is simple and relatively short, similar to the lunchtime service but with communion laid on. The bread and wine are actually blessed in a separate service which takes place at about 07.45 in the crypt. Those who want to, can join in this service, but we were just a tad too late for that. Just an aside, I have heard that this service is held in the main church in the summer months, as the crypt is not very big. After the main service, no one hangs around as you have to queue for breakfast and eat it, in time to get to the Bible instructions which start at 10.00.

Breakfast - Taizé style

So my third first of the day was my first ever Taizé meal and yes, as everyone says, it was “simple”. A choice between tea (which my companions strongly advised against) or hot chocolate which was made without milk. We had a small bread roll, a pat of butter (real butter I might add, not margarine) and two sticks of chocolate. No cutlery - no one told me to bring my own – so I had to rip open the roll and squidge the butter on the surface, too bad it was so cold otherwise this method might have worked a bit better. I put the two sticks of chocolate between the chunks of butter and squashed it all together. Surprisingly tasty and enough for me for breakfast - maybe the croissant helped in that department as well. The “hot chocolate” was lacking in both the hot and the chocolate departments, but it was wet and I managed to drink most of it.

Companions for the morning

Then on to my fourth first of the day and to be honest, the real reason I had gone to Taizé at all this morning. I had heard stories from campers and people in the gîtes about the Bible instruction and I really wanted to see and hear for myself what it was all about and I wasn’t disappointed. We had a very small passage for the day Genesis ch12 v1 – 5 where God tell Abraham to leave and Abraham goes. On the face of it, not very scintillating stuff, but the brother in charge of the session, managed to get us (or should I say me?) to actually think about the words and the meaning behind the story. It is a very long time ago since I had any Bible instruction and my recollections of it are not all positive, but this morning, I was actually hanging on his every word, wondering where he was going with his talk. This is just the start of a week and the theme of “faith” for the week will be developed in the next five days, but I found the 40 minute or so talk very thought provoking and all other things being equal, I would have loved to join for the whole week, but on this occasion, work commitments decree otherwise.

Normally you join in with a discussion group at this point of the morning and you then spend the whole week with the same group to discuss what has been talked about in these sessions. As I was only there for one day, I left when the brother had finished his talk, leaving my companions behind. I then set off on my own and I thoroughly enjoyed my short walk home.

This morning has reminded me of Bruni who stayed in one of our gîtes back in 2010, when she told me that I should “treat myself” to a week of instruction in Taizé. I can now relate to that remark and who knows, one week when we have no one on the site, I might just do that.


For more details of the accommodation we have here at La Tuilerie click here.

An excellent day out, courtesy of Clunypedia

Fresco, Berzé-la-Ville

There are some advantages to being a volunteer at the Office de Tourisme. The staff in the office receive invitations all the time to go to this meeting or that, to go to this exhibition opening or that and other such scintillating events, but sometimes they get invitations to some gem or other and these invitations are all offered around amongst the committee members. Being at a committee meeting the other night, the latest invitations were discussed and this time there was a tour of various Romanesque sites in our area, so I said I would be interested to go, to represent the OT. It turned out to be an all day bus tour with lunch included and I was beginning to get a little nervous that this was going to cost an arm and a leg to see things we have already seen, but wouldn’t mind visiting again, but no, it turned out to be completely free, to promote the new organisation Clunypedia, who are developing IT interface tools with the Fédération Européenne des Sites Clunisiens to improve the "visitor experience" to the Clunisien sites.

Paw prints in the floor

So off I went one morning this week, with Cees hiding in my coattails, to board the coach in Cluny, in the glorious sunshine. First stop, Berzé-la-Ville to visit the superb Chapelle des Moines. On arrival there were croissants and coffee and then for a guided “tour” of the chapel. I say tour loosely, as anyone who has been there will know you just sit in the chapel and look at the amazing frescos. The guide was very knowledgeable and interesting and we must have spent an hour just looking in detail at the frescos. The real bonus of this visit was that we were allowed to take photographs, something an ordinary tourist is not allowed to do. The chapel is a real marvel and a must for anyone even remotely interested in Romanesque art. Even the floor fascinated me as there were little cat paw prints in the floor tiles and I had visions of Fifi’s forefathers wandering over still drying floor tiles in a sechoir just like the one we have here in Chazelle. I would have loved to have lifted one of the tiles to see if they actually came from here, but I didn’t dare!

Wine tasting

Onwards to a vineyard, Domaine des Vignes du Maynes, which can trace its origins back to the days when Cluny was a major power in Europe. This was one of the Doyennés for Cluny. Doyennés were suppliers to the abbey, which were strategically placed in the countryside around Cluny to supply the Abbey with food and of course wine. Even Chazelle started life as a Doyenné, possibly also for wine, but the vineyards were destroyed in the late 19th century in the phylloxera plague.

We had a look round the caves and tasted the wine. The white wine was exquisite and for those after a very different red wine, they had some bottles well worth a try, I personally found the red a bit too overpowering in flavour, but more than one or two bottles were sold to the connoisseurs from Paris. They also had an amazing tool collection that the grandfather and father of the current owner have been collecting for years. If there is a tool for it, these chaps have found one, literally thousands and thousands of tools. They could do with presenting their treasure trove a bit better, but it was fascinating none the less.

Cluny Abbey

The coach then drove us through the countryside looking out at Brancion, Chapaize and Cormatin and then back to Cluny, fortunately dropping us at the car park so that we could load the wine purchases into our cars before we went to the Abbey for lunch. After lunch we, had a speedy visit of the museum and the Abbey and we left the Abbey via "the locked door” and in to the main street to visit the ongoing renovation of the Dragon House in the centre of town and for those without vertigo, there was the possibility to climb the Cheese tower.

All in all an excellent day out and so here is a plug for Clunypedia as a big thank you to them. Clunypedia Facebook page




La Tuilerie Website with details of holiday accommodation, conveniently located to visit the Romanesque gems of South Burgundy.