Putting up tents.

Fifi by the water barrels

I was strimming the reeds in the reed bed at the end of this week, when I noticed that the large white communal tent had gone up at Taizé. Spring is on its way and Easter is just around the corner. Things on the hill are busying up with a veritable army of volunteers (the so called “permanents”) who are preparing everything to cope with the huge influx of people for the Easter meetings. Tent frames are going up all over the place ready for the masses of blue accommodation tents which will be full in a few weeks. It is not surprising then, that we were lulled into a false sense of security about the pending camping weather.

Ice transported to the ditch

Every time low temperatures are predicted, we empty the water barrels at the bottom of our stairs so that they do not get damaged by the ice, so it was with horror yesterday that we spotted that there was an inch of ice on top of the water and the Fifi saving ladders could no longer be moved at all. So with the temperature at –3 degrees yesterday afternoon, there we were breaking ice and carting it off into the ditch along with about 2-300 litres of freezing cold water. I managed to get Fifi to pose for the photo just after we had done the work and doesn’t she look nice and warm with that fluffy fur coat of hers.

We were just in time, it them started to snow and my beautiful view of the tents in Taizé has been somewhat wiped out. So no photo of the tents in Taizé I am afraid, but here’s a nice photo of tents on our campsite, not taken this week by the way !

Non-view of Taizé

Campsite looking out towards Taizé

For more pictures of the campsite or our holiday accommodation click here.

Flower making then another long lunch with delicious potatoes.

An evening's work.

The other week we enjoyed yet another St Vincent celebration where the winegrowers in the area join together on the occasion of their patron saint’s day. After a parade, there is a church service and then a lunch with locally produced wine.

As with every year, paper flowers are made to decorate the village hosting the event. Not just one or two, but thousands upon thousands of the things, roses, wisteria, peach blossom, poppies, anemones and forsythia are just the ones I can remember. This year we decided to join the flower making team in one of the villages. So we turned up, awaited our instructions and we were allocated to poppy making. Cees and I had quite a little poppy factory going by the end of the evening. In all, we made nearly 50 poppies between the two of us in a couple of hours. You can just imagine how many man-hours are needed to make the thousands of flowers actually produced ! All the paper flowers were duly set out in Coretvaix (the host to this year’s party) on Saturday afternoon and that night it literally poured with rain. The blossom, wisteria and forsythia faired quite well, but sadly our huge poppies caught too much water to be at their best come Sunday morning.

Slightly floppy after the rain

But of course, the main event of the day is the lunch and this year they had returned to using the caterer Rose from Monceau-les-Mines and it was truly superb. We started with a terrine of guinea fowl and foie gras with pistachio, the fish course looked interesting, but I was treated to sweetbread vol-au-vent with mushrooms. After a trou bourgignon (local fire water poured over a cassis sorbet) the main course was a mouth-watering braised veal, tomatoes Provencal and pommes dauphine, a plate of cheeses followed and then a variety of delicate desserts with the coffee. We left as soon as the coffee was served at 7 o’clock in the evening - lunches tend to take a long time round here !

The potatoes (pommes dauphine) are worthy of a mention in their own right as I had never had anything like them before. To be honest when I see them on the menu I always confuse them with pommes dauphinoise, which is layers of potato roasted in cream to give a soft succulent finish and brown crust – one of my favourite ways of making potatoes and worth every massive calorie in my opinion, so when the usual deep fried balls of potato coated in breadcrumbs arrive on my plate I am always disappointed. But on this occasion we were treated to an absolute delight of a potato dish, a light crusty potato ball almost like choux pastry or a small Yorkshire pudding but with a potato taste, hollow in the middle, just crisp and delicious.

Somewhat confused at not having received the usual miserable potato balls, I started an internet search and found out that all this time I have been cheated. The disappointing bread crumbed potatoes normally served to the public are imposters, they are not pommes dauphine at all, they are pommes noissettes. So for the first time in my life, at this year’s St Vincent lunch, I was treated to the real thing.

I can’t pass up the opportunity of giving a recipe for these delights.

Pommes dauphine - the real thing.

Pommes Dauphine – makes about 30 potato balls

(sorry about the mixed units, it’s just the way I think..)
5 oz plain flour
4 oz butter
a large pinch of salt
¼ pint milk
¼ pint water
4 eggs - lightly beaten
1 kilo Potatoes, peeled and cut into equal-sized chunks
Freshly-ground Black Pepper

Put the milk and water in a large saucepan and add the butter and heat gently.
When the butter has melted, raise the heat and bring the mixture to the boil.
Add the sifted flour and the salt to the liquid (stirring all the time) and mix it all together.
You should end up with a smooth dough.
Allow the dough to cool slightly, then mix in the beaten eggs, a little at a time.
Cover the pastry and set aside.
Boil the potatoes in a pan, adding a little salt to the water.
Simmer until they are done (test with a knife).
Drain and mash the potatoes without adding any extra liquid.
Mix the mashed potatoes and pastry mix together, adding some pepper.
Heat enough oil to 190ºC so that the potato balls can be deep fried.
Scoop out dessertspoons of the potato/flour mixture and fry them in the hot oil for about 2 minutes – by which time they should be golden brown.
Remove the browned balls with a slotted spoon, and keep them warm in the oven on some kitchen paper.

Absolutely yummy.


La Tuilerie Website

Jobs that take months

This last week started with our electricity being cut off. I don’t mean throw a switch - which they did first, or remove the fuses – which they did as a second, I mean literally cut off. In France there are no half measures. A nice man from the electricity company climbed the pole in our garden and got out a huge pair of cutters and literally cut us off.

Out come the cutters

One gone, three to go

So what had we done to prompt such drastic action? Well nothing actually. For reasons that are beyond our comprehension, the electricity company have decided to replace the 10 or so poles that bring the electrical cables to our house and that means installing new cables. The whole exercise has been going on for months and finally, as of early this week, the lovely new electricity poles in our field are connected by new cables to our house. I can’t say we have noticed any difference, but I am sure that the little electrons rushing into our house are much happier having have travelled more comfortably down the new cables. Only the telephone wire to go and then the old posts will be cut down and removed, now that will be fun..

Installing new cables is not a job for wimps

When the electricity came back on, I was able to get down to things and finally finish the bathroom, another job that has been going on for months. So here is the full reveal. Dah dah!

For more information on our holiday accommodation with a revamped bathroom click here.

Bingo – Again

Bingo time again

I am not a fan of Bingo, but it is that time of year again when we run the fund raising Bingo event.

So I have been out traipsing the streets selling tickets, well not actually traipsing the streets, I talked a couple of friends into buying some tickets and we bought the rest ourselves this year. With so much on and with such cold weather and what with it being so last minute and all - excuses, excuses, excuses.

Having said that, our cards have been relatively successful in the past, so maybe more people would have wanted to invest, had we had the time and energy. Our first year of selling, one of our tickets won the consolation prize for the second prize (sounds odd, but they have odd rules in this country) so a terrine (a little jar of pâté to you and me) went to R & G in St Ythaire and the following year one of our tickets won a cordless vacuum cleaner, which went to a chap in Luxembourg. We were buoyed up with our successes last year, so we went on a huge selling spree and as opposed to our usual 20 tickets, we managed to sell just short of 100. Not one ticket won !

So going back to selling just 20 tickets again, I didn’t hold out much hope of a winner.

Guess what? Yes, we have a winner. This time it is the second prize - a getaway from it all weekend for two.

Who’s the winner? Here he is.

Claude the Tiger

I am not sure what the adjudicators will say when they realise that the weekend has been won by a stuffed tiger too young to gamble, but I won’t let on if he takes me with him.


La Tuilerie Website

Changes at La Tuilerie

This time last week

I am a bit tardy this week with my blog, but I think I have a relatively good excuse - I’ve been hard at work.

The bathroom in l’Ecurie has been showing its age the last year or two - well who hasn’t really - so this winter’s big maintenance job was to give it a face lift.

As any cosmetic surgeon will know, when you start to correct one thing, something else lets the whole image down. In this case, I started chipping off a little bit of plaster back in November and well, one thing led to another.

The troops have arrived

This time last week, the bathroom looked like the first photo and I was beginning to despair that it would ever look like a bathroom again and even if it ever did, I had no confidence that that would be in time for our first guests at the beginning of April.

Despite the snow early last week, a very competent friend turned up to swell the ranks and things started to improve. At last someone with confidence that this could be solved. Walls rendered, tiles up and finally this morning, I have finished the grouting, now doesn’t that look great?

Grouting done

For the full reveal you will have a wait another week or so until the painting is done and the shower put up etc, but at last I feel we are getting somewhere.


For details of our holiday accommodation - almost with a new bathroom - click here.

Celebrations and Sad News

The Mayor's speech

This Friday evening we went to the “Voeux du Maire” which is an event held every year, where the Mayor gives a speech celebrating what has gone on in the last year and looking forward for the next twelve months. It is the chance to say “Happy New Year” and kiss, kiss to all your friends and acquaintances, then enjoy a glass or two of crément and a slice of brioche. All very amicable and an enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours.

This year was the same as always, the speech was as expected: the new school is up and running – the kids love it; all the houses have numbers – please use them; the new dustbins are up and running – please recycle as much as possible; thank you for all the hard working volunteers for this, that and the other. Then when he was almost finished, the mayor became very emotional, we actually thought he might begin to cry and then he announced that our village bank machine had been vandalised again, less than one year after the last time this happened.

We were stunned, it was obvious that not all the village had heard the news and so those who knew, told those who didn’t, all the details. This time the thieves were better equipped, better organised and not a little bit cocky. Not only did they remove the whole bank machine and move it to the square outside the church to continue demolishing it to make it easier to transport, but they shouted “we’re bank robbers” at the tops of their voices when they saw curtains twitching.

The Grange Finot

The last time the machine was damaged, a replacement took 5 months to arrive and to be honest, no one has any hope that this one will actually be replaced. So a big thank you guys, I hope you enjoy the couple of thousand you have won at the expense of the whole village and the thousands of tourists who pass through here.

Another piece of sad news reached our ears as well, our favourite restaurant is closing down and moving to Cluny. OK so it is not too far for us to go for a meal, but as The Grange Finot is literally just around the corner, we will be sad to see Serge go.

On the upside, he has sold the restaurant and we are all hoping the new owner will be as good. No dates have been given for the move, but we will certainly be keeping our ears to the ground on this one.


La Tuilerie Website

New Year in Burgundy

Verrine

We normally don’t actually celebrate New Year, we are rather boring if the truth be known and not party animals at all, but this year we were talked into going to dinner with some friends, and what a dinner it turned out to be.

In total 20 people were invited, we started at 8 o’clock with crément and aperitif snacks - too many to list here, but all delicious. This was followed by an excellent dry white wine, together with a very good amuse-bouche of lentil and ham mousse in a verrine (a small glass). After that, the starter appeared, fois gras with a pear chutney served with warm toast and a sweet wine from the Alsace. Fish course next, salmon for everyone except me, who was treated to an absolutely delicious pâté, served with a green salad and the original dry white wine. Red wine time now, a local burgundy, with roast beef, roast lamb, boiled ham and carrots, beans, parsnips and roast potatoes.

Fois gras

We were just finishing our main course when midnight was sounded. Out came the champagne, party poppers, pea shooters and silly hats, kisses all round. One set of next-door neighbours arrived shortly afterwards bringing more champagne and then the neighbours from the other side arrived, totalling 35 of us at the most busy point. Good job our friends have a large living room.

Most of the extras left by 1 o’clock and we moved on to the cheese course, an excellent selection made all the more perfect as it included one of my favourites, St Félicien - a small runny, creamy number. Finally the first dessert arrived, mousse-au-chocolat, again in the very cute verrines.

St Félicien

Lots of dancing, lots of chatting, giving and receiving presents, great fun all round.

By five thirty you would have thought we had all had enough, but no, it was time to make some onion soup! All the lads into the kitchen, finding and chopping a couple of kilos of onions and expertly making the soup, making garlic croutons and grating cheese. I had heard that French parties ended this way, but I didn’t really believe it. “Good for the digestion” the lady next to me at the table had said.

Onion soup to round it all off.

So there we were at half past six (yes it took that long to make) eating our onion soup and for those who hadn’t had enough to eat, there was also a strawberry cheesecake.

We found our bed, as everyone left, at 7 am. I think I'll need a whole year to recover from this one.

Happy New Year!


La Tuilerie Website

Taizé Goes to Rome

The Pope joining the Taizé prayers (F1 TV)

As at the end of every year, the brothers of Taizé leave their community in France for a few days and go off to the European Meeting - this year it’s Rome. The young people arrived in Rome on Friday and they will stay until 2nd of January.

The brothers leaving the prayers in Rome (Taizé website)

The Pope joined the prayers last night in the square outside St Peter’s Basilica with the 40 thousand or so young people joining in. One of the photos was taken from the news on France 1 last night and the other is from the Taizé website. I particularly like the one showing the brothers leaving the prayers and moving towards the pilgrims in the square – from their side, it must be a very moving and uplifting experience to see so many people there just because of them.

End of Sunday's service in Taizé

But what happens here when everyone has gone? Well prayers go on as usual, there is always someone here. The old brothers who can’t travel, the sisters of St Andrews and of course, the local congregation. This morning the Sunday service was held in the small Romanesque church. It was packed with the hundred or so locals who come every Sunday, rain or shine, pilgrims and brothers or not. A very intimate and different kind of service, with the singing ringing round the Romanesque edifice, a sound not often heard within these walls, but it is what they were built for and it is good to see the church being used in this way, every so often.


La Tuilerie Website for accommodation within walking distance of Taizé.

Wine for Christmas

New wine producer in Bray

When people stay in the gîtes or on the campsite, they often ask us, what good wine there is to buy round here. Well we are in Burgundy, so you would suppose that the red is good. Actually we are in the white Burgundy wine region and good local reds are few and far between. Having said that, there is a pocket of red wines that are quite superb and only well known to the locals. Those are the wines from Bray, a couple of kilometres from here.

When we first arrived, some French people staying on the campsite, invited us to join them for a glass of red wine they had bought from Bray and we were stunned by the quality. All of the local red wines we had bought had been unmitigated disasters and expensive to boot. At around 8 Euros a bottle, Henri Lafarge is not that expensive and is every bit worthy to be called a Burgundy.

Henri Lafarge has been selling off small parcels of his vineyards over the last few years and there are now two new, young producers of wine in Bray, who do an excellent job. Peter Gierszewski – Domaine de Thalie - was the first that we got to know. He is farming organically and surprisingly his bottles do not shout ORGANIC at you, nor does the price and even more surprisingly his wine is quite superb. At long last someone who is confident of his ability as a producer not to have to rely on a gimmick.

Jeweller showing his wares at the wine tasting

A few weeks ago another new viticulteur in Bray (Christophe Perrin) had an open weekend, you could taste the wines and he had invited local artists and food producers to join in the fun. Our favourite goats’ cheese maker La Trufière from Lys was there, along with someone selling oysters and other shellfish, a local painter, potter, jeweller and basket maker, but we were there for the wine.

Apparently he had bought four different parcels of land and he started making wine in 2009. He had two parcels for white and two parcels for red wine, he also combined the two different whites to make, in my opinion, a far superior wine.

Different soil types with their respective bottles

In the wine cellar where you could taste the red wine, there was a little display of soils samples from the four land parcels and I was amazed that the content of the ground was so very different for each parcel, despite the fact that the parcels are very close to the other. No wonder the wines all had a distinctive flavour.

Now here is some really good news for all those visiting here. Monsieur Perrin is moving the Chazeux next year - just at the end of our road - so we will even less distance to go to get some really good wine.

Merry Christmas everyone – we’ll be enjoying a good bottle of local Burgundy red this year!


For details of the accommodation we rent out near Bray and other excellent wine areas see La Tuilerie Website.

Mud Huts and Prayer Stools

Taizé nativity scene 2012

It’s that “Taizé Nativity Scene” time of year again. Rather than do a rundown week by week, here’s just two pictures in one. This year the theme is Africa, so Mary and Joseph are black Africans, as are all the rest of the cast and the stable is a mud hut. I’m not sure quite what the deeper meaning is behind it, but it is an interesting twist, particularly as when there were discussions to found a Jewish homeland in the early 1900s, one of the options was Uganda. But I don’t think that that is the link they are thinking of.

Romanesque church Taizé

In any case we were in Taizé and as Cees has been trying to photograph the old church for quite some time now, we popped into the little Romanesque church to see if it would be possible. The problem is that the church is incredibly dark inside, spookily so to be honest. Most of the potential windows have been closed off leaving just one real window in the whole church and a few very small windows in the apse. All the windows, bar one, are in traditional Taizé orange which lets very little light through - a bit like the use of red light in the old fashioned dark rooms. The church also has dark grey walls and poor Cees has nearly broken his neck on a couple of occasions, when we have gone in there, tripping over a payer stool left in the middle of the walkway. The church is normally full of young people praying, which means you can’t leave the doors open to let enough light in to walk around without disturbing them. But now that there are only a few brothers and a handful of permanents in Taizé, the church can be found completely empty on some occasions, as was the case the other day.

My first attempt at a Taizé prayer stool

While Cees was photographing the architectural features that the church has to offer, I spotted a lonely prayer stool at the front and decided it was about time I tried one out. I always sit on the floor during services, but I have closely watched stool users, so I know how, in theory, to use one. Having watched far too many novices end up with their legs flailing in the air after misplacing their bottom or having the stool angle the wrong direction, I have never dared to try in public. So now was my chance.

Here is photographic proof of my attempt - not a very good photo I’ll grant you. I must say I was surprised. It was in fact very comfortable. Having said that, I am not sure I would be confident enough to try during a service, it’s that bit where you have to turn around through 180 degrees, that tends to be the death knell for many a middle aged beginner.

Next time I am at a service I will watch how the experts do the turn, then I may move on to practicing at home and then who knows, I could progress to being a fully qualified Taizé prayer stool user.


La Tuilerie Website showing accommodation with plenty of prayer stool practice space and within walking distance of Taizé itself.

Film and Food - a very French Phenomenon

The other evening we went to see the smash hit film “Les Saveurs du Palais”, which translates as “the flavours of the palace” or “the flavours of the palate”, giving it one of the more clever play on words I have seen since being here in France. It is a film about a woman who was the private cook for an unnamed French president, how she was bullied and generally how her life was made a misery by the chef in the Palais d’Elysée (where the French president lives), until she left after 2 years, then went to live on a sub-Antarctic island and cook for the resident scientists for a year and the film ends when she is setting off to New Zealand to start a truffle farm.

All that makes it sound like it could be an interesting story, but it wasn’t. In fact I found it difficult to find a coherent story line at all, the problems and ideas were not worked through and what an Australian film crew was doing in the midst of it all, is still a mystery to me. Having said that (apart from the Australian film crew) the casting is spot on and the acting was superb, but surely that is not enough to make this film such a huge hit? No it is not.

The real reason for this film’s success, is peculiarly French. It is in fact the food that keeps this film playing to sell-out audiences. The food is truly exquisite. Even the mention of the menus to be prepared drew sighs from the audience and the filming of a Bresse chicken with truffles stuffed under its skin got gasps of ecstasy. Every single dish displayed, got an ooh or an ahh and when the president ate a piece of bread dripping with butter and loaded with slices of truffles (see photo) washed down with a glass of Chateau Rayas 1969 (which sells today for over 500 Euros a bottle ex tax) the audience went into raptures of delight.

Truffles on country bread dripping with melted butter

That was what the film was about – food - French food at its best. The final dish presented, just before the end of the film, was the iconic dessert St Honoré which echoed back to her time at the Palais d’Elysée, who’s other address is 55 Rue de Faubourg-St-Honoré.

St-Honoré gateau

But a film like this would not be complete without a tasting of its own, so while the director and one of the actors answered questions after the film, four of the best restaurants around here and two viticulturists from nearby, set up a tasting of their own specialties, for the nearly 300 members of the audience. We all went down to the front of the cinema and crowded on to the stage and in something reminiscent of a rugby scrum, we all managed to try out the food and wine on offer.

Nowhere else in the world can I imagine an evening like this, it was as I said - it was very French.


La Tuilerie Website

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.