Life around Cormatin, Taizé, Cluny - Burgundy

I have moved

2011-05-25T14:31:00.001+02:00

This blog has moved.

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Since it is impossible to move followers from blog to blog, I invite those who want that to join the "new" blog.

Traditions

2011-05-21T07:00:00.000+02:00

It always takes me a while to get used to something, but once I get used to it, I hate it when people feel the need to change it. A good example of this frame of mind is the logo of the Intermarché, a supermarket chain, which operates throughout France. The shops are simply called Intermarché, but the chain has some form of surname as well, “Les Mousquetaires”. Why they chose this name is beyond me, although it is quite well possible that they are piggy-backing on the popularity of Dumas’s novel “The Three musqueteers”. Whenever we approached one of their shops, we could not get around looking at their logo, which was prominently displayed on the shop facade.
It took me quite a while to figure out that the Logo was actually a picture of a musqueteer. Hold on, one? No, it was not just one musqueteer, and lo and behold, there were also not just three. After a thorough count I noticed 16 of these brave soldiers. Or, again, 16? I counted 16 foils, but only 8 noses. But maybe these brave young lads were carrying one foil in each hand....
Anyway, it shows how observant some clients are when it comes to “reading” adverts. However, after a number of years I got used to the logo, and what is more, I got somehow attached to it as well!
One can imagine my surprise when I found out that Intermarché was undoubtedly advised by its marketing specialists that they should modernise. And of course, my beloved logo was the first victim. It is in the mean time replaced by a symbolic musqueteer. And even though it still says clearly “Les Mousquetaires”, there is now only one brave lad. Do I like the new logo? Or don’t I? Well, I think in another years time I will get used to it. But I must honestly admit, that without knowing the old logo, I would never have recognised a musqueteer in the new one!

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Modern times

2011-05-14T07:00:00.002+02:00

It was again monsieur P. who managed to turn a normally rather boring ceremony into something slightly more exciting. This time it happened on Liberation day, the 8th of May.
Although there were more people attending than a week ago, the amount of attendants was still a bit disappointing. Fortunately the Sappeurs Pompiers turned up in great number, thus making the parade look more like a parade than just 10 people strolling along the main street. At the monument in front of the church monsieur P. took a little stool out of his car, followed by the modern amplifier with built in CD player. After the minute silence (French minutes, I have noticed, last not more than 35 seconds) and the speech monsieur P. squatted behind the amp and started to fiddle around with the knobs. After two international minutes from 60 seconds each the crowd started to get a bit restless. No trace of the French national anthem yet. Monsieur P. appeared red-headed from behind his devilish machine and asked the flag bearer, monsieur N. for advice. Finally, after a good 4 long minutes, the Marseillaise sounded across the church square.

Next the parade, this time motorised, moved off towards Bois Dernier. Now monsieur P. did not take any risk. After he had installed the amplifier, het took over the flag from monsieur N., who, like an experienced DJ managed to elicit the Chant des Partisans and the Marseillaise from the CD player. With a sigh of relief the meeting broke up, and everyone, light at heart and glad about this happy ending went to Les Blés d’Or for a bite, and more important, for a drink….

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!What the folk?

2011-05-07T07:00:00.002+02:00

The fact that the French are very keen on plays on words is something that does not stop to amuse me. Sometimes they come up with something more or less clever, like “Aux Berges de la Grosne” (On the borders of the river Grosne) which is pronounced identically to “Auberge de la Grosne” (Inn on the Grosne), for a restaurant that closed its doors last year, close to that little stream. It is getting worse the moment the French get the urge to abuse the English language (not the way I do, as a non-native speaker, but to be witty). Last year a supermarket was opened in Tournus bearing the name of “Simply”. What better slogan could they come up with but the meaningless and grammatically incorrect “Be simply, be happy”? Some other organisation organises an open air festival centred around mainly children’s games, which is called “On the road a game”. This jewel was clearly based on the hit by Canned Heat (1968) “On the road again”. The best one in this genre is undoubtedly "!What the folk?", the name of a band around here that specialises in folk music; also note the use of punctuation marks! I do not think this one needs any further explanation.
If there would be a contest for the maximum “jokes” one can embed in an advertisement, I might know who could well be the winner. “Le Papillon”, a beer bar and tea room in Bissey-sur-Fley, is moving from there and will re-open soon in the former “Aux Berges de la Grosne”. Not only did they change the spelling into “Le Pap Y llon”, where the Y could be used to impersonate a frothy glass of beer, but they did more, as the sign shows.
Where the word “Bièrexquise” comes from, I do not know (maybe from “Exquisite beer”?), but “convivialithé” is undoubtedly linked to the conviviality that is inherent in drinking tea. This one is almost better than the "Spéciali-thés" on the old sign! I am waiting for the owner to come up with something like “Our beer is bièrey, bièrey good!”. By the way: after having written this blog I found out that the owners of “Le Papyllon” were not French at all, but German!

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I declare the season opened!

2011-04-30T07:00:00.005+02:00

With the closing of the hunting season, the season of the wreath layings is now officially opened.
My last blog on this subject goes back to July 2010, hence it is time for an update. The last Sunday in April is France’s official day to remember the deportees of the Second World War. That coincided this year with Easter Sunday, possibly the reason why, despite it being a lovely sunny day, there were not many people present. Or contrary, was it due to the blue sky and high temperatures? Whatever the reason, at 9h55, only 10 minutes later than planned, a small cortege of cars drove direction monument in Bois Dernier. It is every time a surprise what goes wrong this time, hence I was watching everything with more than the usual attention. Which amplifier was going to be used to play among others the French National anthem?

Monsieur’s P. old car was parked close to the monument, and there was no amp in sight. Was this a new attempt to force those present to sing the Marseillaise live?
The wreath was laid by Monsieur P., a survival of Buchenwald, assisted by L., whose parents were deported and never came back. After the obligatory speech, dictated by Paris, Monsieur P. walked towards the hedge that lines the monument, pressed a button of the machine hidden in the hedge, and as if it had never been away it produced the crackling version of the Marseillaise I gotten quite fond of. In the past I have been using a mock picture of this machine (actually a picture of one of my old transistor radios with built in cassette deck, positioned on the hat shelf of my car), but this time I managed to take a picture of the genuine product, hidden in the bushes.

I used my camera whilst Monsieur P. read the speech from Paris. After which everybody went back to Cormatin, to Café de la Poste for a verre d’amitié. And because there were so few people, and the wine was ordered well before hand, most of the wreath layers staggered home, not quite sober one and a half hour later ….

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Jazz et Caetera

2011-04-23T07:00:00.000+02:00

In earlier postings I have tried to pay some attention to the jazz life in this part of France; see the postings about the Crescent Jazzclub in Mâcon and Jazz à Trivy. The last series (usually 5 concerts per season) can boast concerts by international jazz artists, such as quite recently by organ grinder Rhoda Scott.
Cluny itself hosts the yearly festival Jazz Campus en Clunysois. Having said this, I must admit that I never have been to one concert in the series. That is partially due to the fact that I am not well into the French jazz scene, and partially because I am not really interested in the work shops that are part of the festival.
The same thing holds for another festival around here, Jazz à Couches. The program shows quite a big number of big band concerts, and one can ask oneself whether it is still possible to maintain a good quality big band. The past has proven, in better jazz climates than nowadays’, that maintaining a good big band was only just possible for great band leaders like Basie and Ellington. Another drawback for me is that, although Couches is in Saône-et-Loire, it is not exactly next door for me.

Jazz et CaeteraJazz et Caetera is another organiser of good jazz concerts. Unfortunately Jazz et Caetera does not have a live website (anymore), but the paper as well as electronic newsletter luckily still works. Jazz et Caetera started off giving concerts in Château de Dravert in La Guiche, but the last few years they organise concerts throughout the region. In Châteu de Dravert I have seen an excellent concert by René Urtreger, the piano player who performed with Miles Davis during the recording of the sound track of “Ascensceur pour l’échafaud”. Michel Hausser, a well known vibraphone player in France, recently gave a concert in Château de Dravert, and Cluny as well as Messeugne hosted concerts by Austrian boogie woogie piano player Martin Pyrker.
Of course it is impossible to maintain that boogie woogie is still one of the leading jazz styles. Having said that, however, what has preference: enjoying an evening out in a nice ambience, listening to good quality “old style” music, or sitting in one’s living room, listening to a CD with more cotemporary jazz music?

For our own website click here.

Mad cow’s disease

2011-04-16T10:34:00.000+02:00

Professionally, but also leisurely, we are very interested in things happening around here which might be of interest for tourists, and hence for our guests, such as concerts, markets, castles, etc. Not only do we do research for our own tourist web pages, but we keep an eye out for similar information on other sites, not to copy, but to investigate to see whether we can use it for our own site.
One of our competitors, who is running a gîte not so far from here, mentioned on her website a cattle market in Charolles, which is a stone throw away from the weekly big cattle market in Saint-Christophe. I quote: “In the cattle markets of Charolles and St Christopher-en-Brionnais you can admire the Charolais, the best beef cattle in France”.

We know the Saint-Christophe market very well, but the Charolles market was unknown to us. So one sunny day we set off to explore this market, which, according to Mr. Google himself, was held every second Wednesday of the month, from January to May.
I quote Mr. Google’s result: ”Le marché aux bovins a lieu le 2e mercredi de chaque mois (transactions à 9h) de janvier à mai au Parc des expositions”.
When we arrived there, there was not a car in sight, there were no farmers, no cattle, let alone a market. When we inquired opposite the market hall, at the Maison de Charolais, we found out that there had not been a cattle market for years, because all cattle transactions were nowadays concentrated in Saint-Christophe.

Wondering outside I suddenly realised what could have been the reason for stopping the market; there was a whole bunch of stark raving mad cows grazing around the Maison de Charolais. And who wants to trade cows with those animals around?
Based on my professional background the phrase “Lessons learned” springs to mind.
Lesson learned from this day: never trust information given by your competitor!

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Wining and dining

2011-04-09T07:00:00.000+02:00

One of the main sources of income in Burgundy is undoubtedly the income from the numerous vineyards and caves in the area. Often we get questions concerning wines from our guests, and although we know next to nothing on the subject, we always try to advise them as best as we can. Luckily often these people know even less about wines than we do, and that makes us kings in the land of the blind.
From experience we know, that good white Burgundy wines are easy to get hold of, at reasonable prizes. Any cave around here, Viré, Lugny, Chardonnay, Bray, etc. sells good white wines and offers tastings.
Red wines are a bit more difficult. If one does not want to spend a fortune on renowned reds from e.g. the Beaune area the choice is less simple. We find the red Mâconnais from around here very often weak, not to say a bit watery in taste, reason why we normally do not buy red Mâconnais. Having said that, the proprietor of the nearby Domaine de la Combe de Bray, Monsieur Henri Lafarge, sells a very nice full bodied red for around € 8.00.
His cave lies a stone throw away from our house, in the village of Bray. One of the disadvantages of caves like this is that they normally only sell their own produce, and hence the choice is rather restricted. Those who prefer to have more choice we generally refer to the Cave in Martailly-sous-Brancion, which has a very wide range of not only Mâconnais, but also of wines from the Côte d’Or.
And then there are always those who prefer to go to a cave armed with a jerry can whilst saying to the attendant “fill her up, please!”. For these customers the Cave Cooperative in Saint-Gengoux-le-National (a branch of the cave in Buxy) is ideal. For a good vin de table, the non-headache variety, put in the jerry can by means of a petrol pump, one pays between 1 and 2 euros a litre. The wines from the pump however do not come from the region.
The Burgundian wine growers can earn a lot more by producing their AOC wines. The pump wines come from other parts of France, where the production is so high that they happily “export” their surplus at cheap rates to Burgundy!
The Cave Cooperative (most of the time, but not always, the cave in Buxy) organises special dégustations. There one of the (very knowledgeable) employees will present a number of wines that go very well with a specific dish. The last time we were there, the food samples and accompanying wines followed the pattern of a standard French meal, i.e. starter, meat dish, fish dish, cheese and sweet dessert. The woman who did the presentation (in our case that was Nadia from Saint-Gengoux), gave an excellent rundown on dishes as well as wines. There was non of this snobbish behaviour, so typical for a lot of the wine evenings organised by so-called connaisseurs!

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Put on your green shoes

2011-03-26T07:00:00.003+01:00

Wherever you drive round around here, you are bound to bump into signs towards parking areas, either for the Voie Verte, or for the Balades Vertes. The first ones are normally located at or nearby the road that runs parallel and next to the old railroad (e.g. the D981), the latter ones one also finds in villages a bit further away from the main road. The Balades Vertes form a network of walks, laid out in the countryside, and signposted with either small yellow signs or the standard (yellow) arrows and crosses the French walker’s association employs. There are books available with a description of all the walks of a certain area, but A4- descriptions of the single walks are also for sale, both at the local Tourist Offices. These walks are very attractive. Not only do they go through many picturesque villages, but most of them follow paths through woods and vineyards.
The winter time menus in the many restaurants around here often have game on it. It may be clear, that game is not only to be admired in restaurants; deer are not uncommon here, and wild boar is also roaming the forests. La Tuilerie is again located on several Balades Vertes. One of the two walks starting in Cormatin almost passes along our gate, and the second one goes through Chazelle.
As said earlier, the walks are marked, and each walk also has its own number. De walks that start in Cormatin are marked CO1 and CO2, those from Taizé TA1, TA2, etc. The project itself, and the maintenance of it, are partially paid from the revenues of the taxe de séjour, a tourist tax for each of our guests which we have to pay at the end of the season. Not only do our guests (indirectly) pay for the Ballades Vertes, they also profit from it directly!

This blog in 3 episodes is of course far from complete. For more information about this region I like to refer to the tourist page on our own website and to an extensive blog about tourism and activities around here.

How green is my valley

2011-03-19T07:00:00.006+01:00

The first boucle I did was no. 10, with difficulty 1 (made for me!), distance 15 km and estimated time 1h30. The route comes almost past our house, and hence I joined the route at the end of our path. As the name of the boucle indicated, this circuit passes by some nice Romanesque churches, like the very small church of Lys (with remains of some medieval wall paintings), and the beautiful church of Chapaize. Lys also boasts an amazing amount of artisans, and Chapaize has facilities to sit on a terrace with a drink, or to stop for a meal. From Chapaize the road goes via Bissy-sous-Uxelles through Bessuge to Cormatin. And also Cormatin has ample opportunities to drink a cold glass of bear or enjoy a meal. Indeed, if you feast your eyes on the things you can see underway, you will be back at la Tuilerie roughly one and a half hour later.
Another plus point of these boucles is, that they are fairly well signposted, and that it is possible to link some boucles together to create a bigger circuit.
As boucle no. 10, some boucles are thematic. Boucle no. 11 for example takes you past a number of lavoirs or public washhouses. These are small open, covered structures, with a stone basin in the middle, where until the seventies the village women were doing their washing. The basin was provided with fresh streaming water by a nearby river or a brook. No. 11, difficulty 2, length 17 miles can be perfectly combined with e.g. no. 10. The route starts in La Tuilerie, and passes through Lys, Bissy-sous-Uxelles, Bessuge, and Cormatin. It continues via the Voie Verte to Savigny-sur-Grosne, carries on via Boucle 11 to Bonnay, Cortevaix, Flagy and Massilly where it joins the Voie Verte, which takes you underneath Taizé direction Cormatin until the road to Chazelle.
Other thematic boucles bring you past potters, through vineyards, etc. One of the frequently asked questions is whether it is safe to cycle along the roads. The answer is: yes. The boucles are generally following quiet roads and hardly “main” roads. Further, the French are sticking very well to their traffic rules. One of those rules is, that when overtaking an bicycle with a car, the driver has to leave a distance of 1 m (approx. 3’4”) in villages or 1.5 m (approx. 5’) outside villages between car and bicycle.
For more weathered cyclists there is also the possibility to test their stamina around here. Some of the boucles with difficulty 4 contain really vicious climbs; the real die-hards amongst our cycling guests have expressed their pleasant surprise about the possibilities to exercise their muscles.
In my next and last blog in this series I will elaborate a bit on the concept of the Balades Vertes.

This blog in 3 episodes is of course far from complete. For more information about this region I like to refer to the tourist page on our own website and to an extensive blog about tourism and activities around here.

Green, green grass of home

2011-03-12T07:00:00.007+01:00

Those familiar with this blog and this region should know by now that a cycling or walking holiday in Burgundy more has to offer then just wine and good food. For those not familiar with the area however, this blog might be an eye opener.
For years I have cycled day in day out the 10 miles between house and work and vice versa. After having moved, in September 2005, to France, this daily routine was one of the things I missed most. Of course, certainly in the beginning, we were too busy getting the gîtes and the campsite up and running, organising the enormous amount of stuff we had brought over, etc. to have much exercise. During that time I cycled regularly into Cormatin, to buy bread and a newspaper, but 2 x 2 miles a day is not the same as 2 x 10 miles. To make up for the difference I cycled the 8 miles up and down to Cluny as often as was needed to buy a book or something else which was not readily available in Cormatin. Only after the big renovation was over, time came to concentrate on finding out what would people attract to this part of the world for a holiday. One way of finding out was to get on my bicycle and cycle into Cluny, where the Tourist Office not only has an excellent staff, but also a good collection of brochures. And because I had cycled through Taizé and Massilly along the Voie Verte, it seemed logical to pick up some information about this cycle path.
I found out very quickly, that the Voie Verte more had to offer but just cycling along an old flat piece of converted railway (approx. 44 miles) between Givry and Charnay-lès-Mâcon. The tourist offices around here have free maps of the Voie Verte available, where one can see which round trips (boucles) there can be made from various spots along the Voie Verte. All these circuits are signposted with little shields along the roadside.
Very soon I spotted near our house some of those signs. It appeared that the Romanesque (Norman) church route almost passed by La Tuilerie. All boucles start and end at the Voie Verte, normally by a parking area for those who want to leave their car somewhere and carry on by bicycle. Boucles 10 and 10bis start from the parking area at Cormatin-Bois Dernier, but of course one is free to start wherever one wants. All boucles have a degree of difficulty ranging from 1 (easy-peasy) to 4 (why on earth am I doing this???), a distance, an estimated time (sufficient time to visit the tourist attractions underway), and they all start where they end. About the various boucles I will write in my next blog.

This blog in 3 episodes is of course far from complete. For more information about this region I like to refer to the tourist page on our own website and to an extensive blog about tourism and activities around here.

The holy corkscrew

2011-02-26T07:00:00.001+01:00

Anyway, I was well impressed by the scale of the event. There were several hundreds of people in the procession, which started in Vaux, and climbed the short distance uphill to the church of Saint-Ythaire. The various Guilds had their banners and their different uniforms, whereby the “Chevaliers” of the “Confrérie” were not only carrying their Saint Vincent, but also other paraphernalia. Their coat of arms depicts a cork screw and something resembling a hand grenade. Today we had a better look at this coat of arms and only now we found out that the holy hand grenade, on the other side of the holy corkscrew, was in reality a side view of a tastevin, a shallow metal, often silver platter which is constructed to display the colour of the (red) wine, and used by professional wine tasters. All members of the Confrérie were wearing a big tastevin around their neck, and one was carrying a huge corkscrew.
The mass was celebrated in a normal French way. However, because the church was chocker block full, and we were seated in a recess, right behind a bunch of 10 (ten) horn blowers; I almost got a heart attack when completely unexpectedly all ten of them decided to join the congregation in a song.
Then there was the inevitable wreath laying at the war memorial, followed by a vin d’honneur at the town hall.
But what is a fête in France without a lunch? After two o’clock we piled into the Foyer Rural of Saint-Gengoux, where I did a quick count; the tables were laid for 200 people. We found out quickly who did the catering; a company from Montchanin (about 25 km away) had brought over food, professional cookers and cooking utensils and prepared a stunning meal for all present.
Just to make you jealous:
Pâté de canard avec son foie gras et quelques feuilles;
Dôme de sole, queues d’écrevisses sauce du chef avec riz et fleuron;
Trou Bourguignon;
Souris de cerf braisé et ses légumes;
Fromage plateau servi avec noix et raisins;
Mignardises - Café.
And of course there were plenty of excellent local wines served with this meal....
At the end of the meal another ritual had to be performed. A few members of the communes involved were invited to join the Confrérie, and some were even appointed “Chevalier”; they were given the accolade by means of what we have dubbed the holy corkscrew.
As usual with these sorts of events these lunches last at least four hours, after which the real diehards go on dancing until the wee wee hours. We however are spoil sports in this respect; after the last cup of coffee we were completely worn out, and only wanted to go home. And the fact that the band was in shrill contrast with the rest of the day had not much to do with our wimping out, after an excellent day....

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The wrong Saint

2011-02-19T07:00:00.001+01:00

January 22 is the official day of Saint Vincent, the patron saint of the wine growers. This is a festival that does not go unnoticed in this wine growing area, but having said that, because we live in a small almost wineless enclave, Cormatin itself is not really involved in this tradition. There is a yearly big festival for the whole of Burgundy, which is rotating yearly from village to village. The festival lost its importance at the end of the 19th century, parallel with secularisation of French society, but was revived in the late thirties, and last year 40000 people took part in the celebrations. In 2009 the Saint Vincent Tournante was held in the area of the Mâcon-villages appellation.
In places where there is still an active “Société de secours mutuelle” (something like a wine growers union, association or guild), in our part of the world united in a bigger society, the “Confrérie des Vignerons de St Geng de Vigny” (note the typical French subtle play on words - Saint-Gengoux or Saint-Jean and vigneron or vignoble), a yearly local St. Vincent festival is celebrated.
This festival also rotates every year, although in a much smaller area. Although not directly involved, we had heard from friends who live and are active in the local Amicale or Foyer Rural in the nearby village of Saint-Ythaire, that the local Saint Vincent this year was hosted by their village.
They have been busy for months, one evening a week together with other villagers, to fold paper flowers to decorate the village. Since we are involved in similar projects in Cormatin, we realised how big this event must be in comparison to “our” one night flower folding event for the yearly Téléthon. Anyway, we expressed our interest in this festival, and our friends kept us up to date. Recently we were issued with a program and an inscription form, we paid our entrance fee, and bingo, we were in for a day out on Sunday 7 February.
It turned out to be a misty day, when we turned up at 9h30 in Vaux, at a barn next to our friends’ house. They had indeed done a wonderful job in decorating the village. Not just in the village itself, but also along the roads leading up to Vaux and Saint-Ythaire there was an overabundance of Christmas trees along the streets, decorated with paper flowers.
The trees were partially donated after Christmas, partially freshly stolen from the surrounding woods. Also hedges and permanent trees were “flowering” in a sea of yellow, red, green, violet and blue. Apart from that, displays were made of various materials, whereby the number of “puppets” draped in wheelbarrows, surrounded by numerous empty wine bottles, suggested more than seven drunken nights. Of course nobody turned up in time; this is France after all. But by 9h45 sort of a parade was formed, headed by the various Guilds in their uniforms with banners and their own statue of Saint Vincent.
I dropped my proverbial clanger, when I saw Saint Vincent standing on a sedan chair, where the carrying structure clearly said “Saint-Vallerin”. I shouted out that these guys had brought the wrong Saint, not realising that it was the name of the village where this Saint Vincent lived, and not the name of the Saint itself.
Well, nobody is perfect....

To be continued

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And the winner is.....

2011-02-12T07:00:00.005+01:00

Yesterday it was finally the big day; we had to play loto or bingo for those living outside Cormatin who had bought a number of cards.
Around five in the afternoon the Salle Saint-Roch started to fill up with villagers who came to play bingo in loco parentis. Quite some cards had been sold, so every player was in charge of a generous amount of loto cards. We both played on 12 cards each; the cards had been distributed randomly, so in theory nobody was playing the cards he or she had sold. After half an hour the first prize (a flat screen TV) fell. The card had been sold by one of our council workers to his father in law. The game continued, and the next prize fell on a card that had been bought by someone from Cormatin. The card was checked by one of the officials, and yes, it contained all the correct numbers. The game was just about to continue, when somebody else rather sheepishly shouted “Bingo”. And this card turned out to be a winning card as well. When more then one card wins at the same time, each potential winner grabs a bingo ball from a bag; the highest number wins the prize, and the lowest number gets a consolation prize (often a small pot of paté from the supermarket). In this case the late comer had won. The winning card was confiscated by an official, and she looked in her paperwork which person had sold the card with no. 354 and to whom.
The poor woman than had to announce the name: after several tries she came out with the name of a certain Pocahontas from Luxemburg, who had bought the card through Sue Nixon. It quickly dawned on us that the winner was one of our last year’s campers, who follows this blog regularly. His Lithuanian surname starts wit P., and slightly resembles Pocahontas.... He contacted us immediately after he read my blog about the loto for the Amicale and forwarded money to buy some cards straight away. However, winner or not, I have to disappoint him a bit: he did not win the espresso machine which he wanted, but a brand new cordless hoover; no misunderstanding, this is NOT an old hoover whereby someone has cut off the cable!
The other members of our network who have bought cards will receive an email from us telling them that they did NOT win. But we are 100 % convinced that everybody has bought cards for the good cause, and the Amicale de Cormatin will certainly see to it that the money is put to good use!

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Units of the world, unite!

2011-02-05T07:00:00.002+01:00

Somebody who follows my blog on Facebook commented on my previous blog about fire wood. He lives in another part of Bourgogne, in the Bresse region, and apparently the wood there is not delivered and measured in “stères”, but in “moules”. Ever since I started work in the petrochemical industry, and got involved in working in the imperial units of length, volume, weight, force etc. I have been fascinated by the variations in archaic units; the Netherlands knew in the past at least 6 (six!) different inches, ranging between 24 and 27 mm, depending on the region. It is interesting to know, that although the metric system was developed in France during the French Revolution, the first head of state to enforce the metric system by law (in 1820) was the Dutch King William I. This fascination caused me to open the French Wikipédia and look up what they have to say about moules and stères.
The moule is a unit of volume for cut wood, which goes back to pre-(French)revolutionary times. And as with most ancient units, this one is also regionally defined. In the Savoie a moule measures 1.6 stères, in the Chablais, a part of the Haut-Savoie it measures 3 stères, and in Burgundy it is as much wood as you can get into a cube with sides of 1.33 m.
This last dimension is no doubt an equivalent of 4 ½ French feet or a number of other local units. This boils down to a gross volume of 2.353 cubic metres. When 1 stère is equal to (effectively) 0.7 cubic metres, a moule should be 3.36 stères. However, my spokesman from the Bresse states that a moule equals 2.63 stères. A simple calculation makes 1 (Bresse) stère effectively 0.89 cubic metres. And that tallies with the rest of his story, wherein he tells that his wood is delivered in 1.3 metres lengths. One has to stack neatly, and hence economically, to stack 1.3 m lengths in a cube with sides of 1.33 m!

For our own website click here.

Three times warm

2011-01-26T16:04:00.000+01:00

People around here use the following expression when they talk about fire wood: it keeps you warm three times; the first time whilst chopping it, the second time whilst stacking it, and the third time whilst burning it. And although we only have been in the woods once to to chop up trees (and that was never to be repeated!), our fire wood manages to keep us warm three times as well.
Quite some time ago now we have found a guy who delivers wood neatly chopped up in bits of 1’-2” long, and his stères are quite generous as well. The disadvantage of his wood is, that it is rather wet, hence not ready for burning when you buy it.
For those not familiar with continental units of measure I will explain what a stère is. A stère is the amount of wood you can store in a box of 1 m by 1 m x 1 m (a box with all 3 sides of 3’-4”). Since the quantity heavily depends on how one stacks the wood, the effective volume of wood in a stère can very widely. Think of a matchbox; the box can contain a lot more matchsticks before you drop it on the floor than after you have been trying to put them back into the box haphazardly. A stère varies effectively between 0.8 and 0.6 of a cubic meter. Also, one wood merchant can be quite different from another, as we have found out.
Our first order, in 2005 was for 6 stère. On D-day a truck appeared, the man dumped what we thought looked like a respectable stack of wood, and we started stacking it. The wood was dry enough to be burnt straight away, which was a good thing, because we needed it there and then. Spring 2006 we took part in the affouage of Cormatin, and that was our first and last experience with cutting down trees in a forest. A year later we found a different and cheaper wood merchant; his wood however was rather wet, and had to be kept to dry for about another year.
We then found out the difference between one merchant and another, and consequently between one stère and another. This guy also turned up in his truck, and dumped what looked roughly like the 6 stère of the year before. Since this time we had ordered 12 stère, we were expecting the man to return once. But no; he made it quite clear, that his truck contained “only” 4 stère, and hence that he would return twice. The stères of the first merchant were about 30 % smaller than those of the second!
The disadvantage however is, that we always have two stacks of wood by the house. Normally the first 12 stère are dumped early in the year at the toilet block for the campsite. We stack the wood under the shed there, which is open on three sides. Hence the wind has got free play there, and the wood does not get rained on. After a year this wood is ready for “consumption”. At the end of the year another wood displacement takes place. The dry wood is then brought into the vide, a covered area between the house and the old kiln, and then re-stacked there. The advantage of having the wood here is that we do not have to plod through the snow in winter when we need wood, we just descend the staircase, fill a basket, and ascend again. And the next spring this whole cycle is repeated.
How much work is involved in stacking 12 stères of wood? I started clearing the way for the guy, opening gates, getting garden furniture out of the way etc. from about 9h00 until I heard the truck approach. The man who brought the wood arrived at 9h40, and dumped the first load. We stacked for about between one and a half and two hours, and just when we wanted to sit down for a coffee, the guy turned up again at 12h00. After a quick lunch we stacked again until 14h00. At 14h15 the last load turned up, and at approx. 16h00 we were finally ready to sit down. Who would complain about a 6.5 hours working day?
Anyway, our wood certainly keeps us warm 3 times: the first time whilst stacking it, the second while moving and re-stacking it, and the third time whilst burning it!

For our own website click here.

Money is the root of all evil

2011-01-15T07:00:00.002+01:00

Sometime ago, in view of a holiday abroad we wanted to buy some Jordanian Dinars. So what does one do? One goes to the nearest centre of the universe, in our case Cluny, enters the Crédit Agricole and asks for a fistful of Dinars. “No sir, I am sorry, but we do not deal in that sort of money. Dollars, Pounds, no problem, but ….” Maybe the Post Office? No way! There was not much choice left; Mâcon should have what we were looking for. Here the refusals differed, from “No, Dinars are only sold in Jordan itself”, “We can only help you if you have an account with us” to “Why don’t you try a Bureau d’échange?”.We had half expected this, so we were prepared. Mâcon does not have any Bureaux d’échange, and Jordan Dinars are freely available, also outside Jordan.

After a rather frustrating trip past Crédit Agricole, CIC, Paribas, Post Office, Banque de France and Crédit Municipale we finally ended up in the Tourist Information Office. The young lady behind the counter made one telephone call, and told us that the nearest possibility to lay our hands on such exotic currency would be the Banque de Paris in Lyon. Well, to drive 100 km to Lyon and back seemed to be a bit over the top, and hence we gave up. How we finally managed to get some Dinars after all? Elementary, my dear Watson! We were leaving for Jordan from one of the suburbs of London. And when you call Marks & Spencer one day beforehand, you can pick up your Jordan money the next day!

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Amicale d'Europe

2011-01-07T13:11:00.004+01:00

I could not have guessed what impact my previous blog had. Literally seconds after I had confirmed publication of the blog, an email came in from a completely unexpected source. The mail was written by someone who stayed on our campsite last year, and who obviously follows my blog with interest. The email simply said : “I would like to order x cards; how do I transfer the money?” Soon more mails with the same intentions arrived. However, we also did some physical begging work. One day we took the car and drove around the area to flog off cards to friends who live around here.
I think it is the first time in the history of the Amicale de Cormatin, that bingo cards have been sold through the internet. And it also would not surprise me, if this was the first time so many nationalities from all over Europe have ordered bingo cards. The cards were purchased by British, French, a Baltic camper who works for the European Commission in Luxemburg, a Dutch camper whom we may call a regular on our campsite, a Dutch skipper, who not only sailed Dutch waters, but is also very familiar with Belgian, French and German rivers and canals, a Frisian/Dutch couple, a handful of Dutchmen from other parts of that small country.....
In short, this bingo seems to cross borders, and is obviously not only restricted to Cormatin. Reason, why for this blog I came up with a brand-new logo for the Amicale de Cormatin.....
From this place I would like to thank all contributors. The prizes will be released on 29 January, and I will certainly report who has (or has not) won.

For our own website click here.

Charity at a manageable scale

2011-01-04T09:05:00.003+01:00

This is a bit of a strange blog, mostly because I feel I have no other means to achieve my goal.
In order to get this goal across a short introduction first. The “Amicale de Cormatin”, a small group of volunteers, assures that each year the seniors of Cormatin are invited to a dinner party, and that for the schoolchildren of Cormatin a Christmas party with a nice present for each child is organised. To fund these events, the Amicale organises yearly a number of events, of which the proceeds are used for these good works. One of these events is the yearly bingo, and part of this bingo is yet another fundraiser, in which we somehow got involved.
The evening before the public bingo or Loto, there is another bingo evening (with attractive prizes), this time played with cards sold to friends and family of the members of the Amicale. All villagers are playing that evening with the cards sold on behalf of those who bought the cards. Only afterwards it is announced who has won the prizes. Last year we had to flog off 20 cards à € 2.00, but this year someone has decided that we should be in for double the amount.
We do not have that many acquaintances around here, through circumstances we received the cards later than the other Amicale members (hence all local friends have already been provided) and that is where the ex-home front might come in.
If those who are interested in helping the Amicale to help send us an email, and we will in our turn provide the potential benefactor with the relevant (Barclay) bank details. At the current exchange rate the cards should be approx. ₤ 1.70 per card. We will transfer the money to the Amicale, taking care of possible transfer costs, as well as safeguard the prizes in case you win something.
The prizes are : a TV with LCD screen, a wireless Hoover and an espresso machine. We will keep hold of the prices until the winners collect them, or until we can deliver them. Please, don’t let us down!

For our own website click here.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot

2011-01-01T07:00:00.003+01:00

Burns’s words sprang to mind when I received a “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year” card via e-mail. The sender was a woman, who stayed on our campsite early July this year. Earlier that year Fifi had given birth to 4 kittens, was sterilised (a bit too late!) and had an accident with most likely a car on our track. Fortunately, the kittens were ready to go when the accident happened, so Fifi could rest in piece, as far as a young cat contained in a 1 x 1 m cage can rest in peace in order to recuperate. But until then we had kept the kittens in Fifi’s apartment, a cave under the staircase to our front door. The kittens were still sleeping most of the day, but when awake they caused total havoc in the apartment. Fortunately the weather was fine, we spent a lot of time sitting in the garden near the campsite, and to give them some freedom they could wonder around our table, drink and sleep at our feet. Some campers were very keen on stopping by our table, not necessarily for a chat with us, but to play with the kittens. Of course the situation became a bit more pressing when Fifi was no longer capable of feeding them. We had placed adverts at the local baker, newspaper saleswoman, butcher, etc., and verbally advertised the kittens to our campers.
However no one took the bait, until Ina L. popped in to pay for their stay with us. Casually she mentioned, that she did not mind to take “little light stripy” with her. With some regret we said goodbye to the little one, and soon after this first departure the other three were picked up by some people of the surrounding villages. So far our orphanage for cats; who the father had been we could only guess. Anyway, the Christmas card we received was not one with the obligatory Christmas tree on it, at least not in full glory. The card showed, sitting under the branch of a real Christmas tree, a cat strongly resembling our own Fifi. Being a habitual cataloguer, it took me only seconds to dig up a photograph of “little light stripy”, AKA “Dopey”, and nowadays roaming around a Frisian village under the name of “Sue”. Whether one should be happy and grateful to be immortalised by having a cat named after oneself, is debatable....

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Steam

2010-12-18T07:00:00.000+01:00

We (almost) live along the old local railway between Chalon-sur-Saône and Mâcon (nowadays a cycle and walking track, the Voie Verte). The heavy duty railroad between those two towns is still in use, and follows more or less the Saône. Further, luckily outside earshot, there is the TGV line between Le Creusot and Mâcon. Whenever one wants to hear the sound of trains, one has to travel. One of the tourist attraction around here is the Parc des Combes in Le Creusot. Le Creusot is a former industrial town, in its heyday heavily involved in coal and steel industries. The Parc is mainly aimed at children, but it also hosts steam events every so often. Besides it offers home to one of the fastest steam locomotives ever built, the 241P17 .
It is not only here where the locomotive was restored and is maintained; throughout the year Le Creusot is the starting point for trips, often made in double traction with the Mistral - the name of the 241P17, to places like Mulhouse, Aix-en-Provence, Lyon, Dijon or Marseille, using the SNCF network. The loc was designed by the French engineer André Chapelon, the inventor of the Compound loc. I quote a friend of mine, an expert on steam and trains: “Compound machines are machines with small high pressure and big low pressure cylinders. The steam expands in two steps from boiler pressure to atmospheric pressure. When starting up all steam goes full on the cylinders; once at speed the compound cylinders are utilised. The machines are not easy to handle, but the French were experts at it.”
One can see the Mistral regularly in the neighbourhood, because quite a number of the train’s trips are coming past or through Chalon, Chagny, Tournus and Mâcon. In Chalon, Tournus and Mâcon there is normally a long stop to enable the Anoraks to shoot their films, photos or sound bites. The picture with this Blog was taken while the train came towards a viaduct near Chagny with a speed of approx. 100 km/h. What is more thrilling than seeing this piece of technical ingenuity ploughing through the beautiful Burgundian landscape?

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Old friends

2010-12-04T07:00:00.000+01:00

The regular readers of this blog might remember a blog I wrote quite some time ago about a quick bite for lunch. In that blog I made reference to a restaurant in Cluny, Cass’ Crout’, where we have had, every Tuesday, a very pleasant and tasty lunch for over a year. After some time we were considered to be regulars there, and we came to know Martine and her husband a bit better, to the extent that we became more or less friends. One can imagine that we were unpleasantly surprised when Martine told us that her husband was going to retire and that they had sold the restaurant. A new restaurant, Le Comptoir has opened its doors at he same premises, but we never got the hang of that one. We soon found a suitable alternative in La Petite Auberge, and we are more or less accepted by the staff there the same way we were at Cass’ Crout’.
On a Saturday we normally go into Cluny to the market, to buy our ration of good Dutch cheeses from the Ladies van der Linden and fruit from Malik & Kedi. Because the market is very popular by the people from miles around, we regularly meet there friends and relations. And since the first weekly outings to the market coincided with the closure of Cass’ Crout’, we regularly bump into Martine when she is carrying heavy bags of shopping down the main street or whilst she is browsing at the market stalls. During one of these encounters she told us that she was going to start a new business. I immediately had a vision of steak haché frites with a glass of very tasty Belgian beer Leffe, but, no, that was out of the question. Martine was going to open a shop selling local art work, and mainly handicrafts or artisanal products. She had already obtained a venue: a shop in Cluny’s main street, not even a stone throw away from her old restaurant. Recently she told us that she would open shop early December.
Whenever we come past that shop, we try to peer inside to see what is going on there. But the curtains were always hermetically closed, and hence we had no idea what the status of the shop was. But yesterday it was different. This time there were no more curtains, and Martine was standing behind the counter, sorting her business out. Of course we could not do anything else but walk in, and she explained in great detail what her plans were, and from which artisans she bought her merchandise. Her brand new shop is furnished very tastefully, and the products she is selling also show extremely good taste. She sells ceramics from an artist in Martailly-sous-Brancion, she has artfully decorated pebble stones in all sizes on display, there are statues of fairies and gnomes, made of beautifully painted tree leaves, figurative sculptures made of iron and steel....
Her timing to open now, just before the Christmas season starts is perfect. In the short period we were there, we saw at least three potential customers entering the shop, of which one left almost immediately. But not because he did not like what he saw. He returned a few minutes later with cash he had withdrawn from the nearby bank, in order to pay for what he wanted to buy!
When we came back from our lunch at Café du Centre (where we eat occasionally; normally we have a kebab at Le Bosphore on a Saturday) we peered into Martine’s shop window again. And although the shop was closed for lunch, the door was still open, and we could hop in to say hello to Martine’s husband as well. I asked them whether I could take some pictures for future use. Of course that was no problem, but they were quite curious why I wanted pictures. So I explained to them that I regularly publish a blog about things that are happening in and around Cormatin.
Needless to say, that we were not allowed to leave the shop without having promised to send them a link to this blog.....

For our own website click here.

Partir, c’est mourir un peu...

2010-11-28T07:00:00.000+01:00

One of the few thing I miss every so often in France is a snackbar. What would make me happier than being able to get a bag of French fries or a simple sandwich during the weekly shopping on the market, whereby the price should be well under € 5? Well, Burgundians think differently! Lunch time is the time for a good, solid meal, moistened with some red or white wine. The only alternative appears to be the omnipresent kebab shop, where one can get a sandwich or galette kebab for around € 5.00. However, we also had found a different alternative in Cluny. In the main street we found a small hole in the wall restaurant, called Cass’ Crout’ (casser une croûte = have a quick bite), where French fries, steak haché with French fries and sandwich americain were served. Very soon we had adjusted our shopping habits to suit the opening times of Cass’ Crout’. However, early this year, during one of our shopping sprees, we went in, when the patronne took us apart with the news that they had sold the place. He was just 60, she was 55, and they were getting fed up with the work. We were not very happy with that news, but on the other hand, what can one do about it? Anyway, in the weeks that followed, the place was still open, and we secretly hoped that the sale was off. Until a number of weeks later the lady who runs the shop told us, that this was going to be our last meal with her; she was closing down the next day for good.
Obviously this still came as a shock to us, and we wanted to go back the next day with a bottle of wine, to say properly good bye to them. However, when we reached Cass’ Crout’ the next day around 4 o’clock, the lights were off and there was nobody inside. There we stood like a pair of plonkers with our bottle of wine.... Anyway, we took another chance the next Friday, and this time we caught the couple who were giving the place a last cleaning, chatting with some of the regulars. Luckily we had a chance to say properly good bye to them, and drink a glass of wine with the other regulars. The bottle we brought was well appreciated.
Of course we feel happy for them, but since that time we are desperately looking for another alternative. And I can assure you, that this is not a doddle, but serious, hard work!

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Pizzeria

2010-11-20T07:00:00.001+01:00

I have never been a great fan of pizzas, the reason being that in the Netherlands pizza bottoms usually resemble thick cardboard or leather, and the filling seems to be put on top for colour effect only. A holiday in Provence changed all that. A simple pizzeria, embedded with many other small shops in the building of a hypermarché sold pizzas with a thin, nice bottom, and the filling contained all sort of goodies, and was not just a thin layer of tomato ketchup.
That pizzeria was in an Auchan in Le Pontet, on the other side of the river from Avignon. Since my encounter with the first edible pizza, every so often I indulge in one. But only when I am convinced that the pizza baker knows his trade!
When we arrived in Cormatin, there happened to be a take-away Pizzeria, called Pizz’Annie. Of course one day, when we did not feel like cooking, Pizz’Annie had to be tried out. We should not have done that. The verdict over Annie’s pizzas was not very flattering. We advised her to close shop and move to the Netherlands; most Dutch people do not really mind a one inch thick pizza bottom.
However, we do not give up that easily. One day, more or less by accident, we found a restaurant in Cluny that served excellent pizzas. The bottoms are extremely thin, and the fillings are superb. As a little extra, on each table one finds a bottle of olive oil which apart from the oil contains a number of spices as well as some bird’s eyes chillies, to spice up the pizzas for those who like them a bit more spicy. The restaurant also serves other good dishes (including pastas) at a very reasonable price. The name of the restaurant is “Le Loup-Garou”(The Werewolf), and it is located near the postoffice, at the beginning of the main street (Place du Commerce). We recommend the place for a good meal, but also for a quick bite during lunchtime on a Saturday after the market is finished.
Among the ex-pats the opinions are divided. One half is adamant that Loup-Garou is the best one in this part of the world, the other half maintains that there are no better pizzas than those at “Le Maronnier” in Saint-Gengoux-le-National. We have also tried the latter, but we still prefer Loup-Garou.
We think that Annie has followed our advise. In any case, she has sold her restarant to Marco, who rechristened the place to Pizz’A Marco. His pizzas are certainly good, although not as good as Loup-Garou’s. Of course Marco has the big advantage of living next door, but apart from that, he also makes the pizzas while you wait. If you would like to have a different ingredient on your pizza than is mentioned in the menu, you can ask Marco, and he will certainly heed your call.
The amount of empty pizza boxes near the bin on the campsite proves, that Marco certainly draws some clientele from La Tuilerie de Chazelle!

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Lost and found

2010-11-13T07:00:00.002+01:00

The last few days have been rather traumatic. When we came back on Tuesday from the Tabac at around 17h00, we saw Fifi roaming around the house. Nothing unusual so far. Wednesday morning however, no trace of the cat to be found. What happens normally? One of us opens the front door, and either Fifi tries to walk into the house, or we hear a distinct click-click, caused by the cat flap, and afterwards some purring noises followed by Fifi jumping up the stairs towards our front door, begging to be stroked. But not that morning. We got a bit worried when we had not seen her at 10h00. After lunch Sue went out, walked around the property, looked in every gutter, but no trace of the cat.
A walk around the house, whilst ringing the bell that normally produces the cat approaching with Mach 5, wherever she is, had no effect. By the evening we were both more or less convinced that she had been killed by a car, a hunter or a fox; although neither of us dared to mention that to the other party. Thursday morning passed by without seeing a trace of Fifi. By the evening Sue had actually switched of the light in Fifi’s apartment under the stairs, but left the food in there. After the quiz Sue was about to go out to put some empty bottles into the recycling bin. And to our endless joy, when she opened the door, who stepped into the house, without even looking the slightest embarrassed? Fifi. We both almost cried with joy, but of course we were quite curious what could have happened to her. A thorough medical examination brought nothing to light. No broken bones, legs or other means of transport. Anyway, where she has been will obviously remain a mystery forever....

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Local specialities

2010-11-06T07:00:00.000+01:00

Whoever has lived abroad for a while will recognise the following. Because no matter how adventurous one is, there are always highlights, or simply treats in international cuisine, that require an acquired taste.
Well known examples of for foreigners “inedible” Dutch goodies are liquorice and raw herring. Throughout the years I have built up quite some experience with international cooking. However, before I lived and worked in Singapore, a fried rice from the local take-away Chinese around the corner was the height of my adventurism. In Singapore I learned to know and appreciate the various multi-cultural kitchens, each with their own etiquette. Malay food, eaten with the right hand, Indian cuisine, eaten with the right hand from a banana leaf, EurAsian cookery, eaten with spoon and fork, the various Chinese cuisines, such as Hainanese, Cantonese, Peking and Cheochew with chopsticks from a rice bowl and from plates in the middle of the table...A few of the things I really hated were seacucumbers and little cubes of dried blood, leaving one with an after-dentist taste in one’s mouth.
Through my British partner I got to know some of the highlights of English cuisine. English tend to get all lyrical about things like Christmas pudding, Christmas cake and marmite; things an average Dutchman would not even look at. But I also cannot get excited about the rest of the yearly extravaganza, the Christmas lunch. As a child I never liked Brussels sprouts, and I still think it is a sneaky way of capital punishment to feed sprouts to children.
So let us analyse an average English Christmas lunch. Which wonderful things can one (I say one, but there is a whole nation eating the same thing on the same day at the same time - frightening or what? -) indulge in? There is dry turkey (give me a juicy steak any time), to be moistened wit gravy (beyond description), stuffing ( only one or two varieties deserve the word nice), Brussels sprouts (the bigger the more horrible), roast potatoes (nice, but not exactly exciting on a festive day), mashed potatoes (same), carrots (same), roast parsnips (same). No wonder the British lost their empire....
But even the culinary champion of the world, France, has things that do not arouse any form of enthusiasm with me. In this part of France, whenever there is something going on, wine is accompanied with something called brioche. Brioche is a bone-dry sort of cake, slightly sweet, and in my view as nice as turkey. Having said that, the French eat it like it is manna from heaven.
Even worse is andouilette, a sort of sausage filled with various sorts of offal. My partner had once told me she had tried it in Arles, but had to throw it away because of taste and consistency. We both like haggis, hence I knew it was not caused by the knowledge of what was contained inside the skin. Anyway, I wanted to try this local speciality (from Lyon) as well. We bought a can of andouilettes, not the cheapest, in order not to end up with low quality stuff. We were going to barbecue them on one of our long Burgundian summer evenings. Of the four andouilettes I ate two, and the other two disappeared in the bin. The taste was certainly not very nice, although not inedible. It was the smell coming from the sausages whilst eating them, getting stronger with every bite, that finally killed my appetite. A very strange experience indeed, knowing that most Frenchmen would commit murder to get hold of a good andouilette. Fortunately we have a cat nowadays. Whenever we make a similar mistake in the future, maybe Fifi will know what to do with the left-overs....

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Topographe à la française

2010-10-23T07:00:00.000+02:00

Spelling in Dutch has always been a subject of heated discussions. Every ten or so years a commission of Dutch and Flemish wise men will come up with yet another way of writing the language. And with every spelling change journalists, columnists and the man in the street are engulfed in heated debates about the usefulness of the whole thing. Very often the debate centres around matters of world importance, like electriciteit versus elektriciteit (electricity), groenteafval versus groentenafval (vegetable waste), etc.
But, at least, once all the changes are accepted, there is in theory a uniform way of spelling words, or so it seems. The French are also quite keen and proud of the fact that correct spelling is important and that it should be adhered to. Or should it?
On one of our researches into the history of our old brick factory, we stumbled upon a few strange discrepancies. The founder of the factory was a guy named Noël Marembaud, and we knew the man had only one son, who died during the Great War in 1916. On the Cormatin war memorial his name was Noël Marembaud, like his father; on a plaque in the church of Chazelle however his name was René Marembeau. Most likely his full name was Noël René.
On a tile which was made by La Tuilerie, our village was called Chazelles in stead of Chazelle. We found a broken marble plaque, in memory of old Noël, where his name had been changed to Noël Marambaud. However, this discrepancy might be excused; we think, that the stonemason who carved the stone, had made a “writing” mistake, reason why the plaque ended up broken in the corner of a shed. But there is more than just those mistakes in spelling surnames, or an occasional place name. We have a client, who lives in Rimont. That is how one finds it on the Michelin or IGN maps, and on some of the direction road signs. On the sign at the edge of the village itself however, as well as in the Register of the Cadastre, it says Rimond. And there are more. Cortemblin (IGN, Cadastre) is also known on road signs as Cortemblein. Crêches-sur-Saône (IGN) is signposted as such in Mâcon, where one also finds signs to Crèches-sur-Saône. The Cadastre gives no solution; place names are written in capitals, and the French generally do not use accents on capital letters. Chazeux (road sign, Cadastre) is called Chaseux on the Michelin map. And these are only the discrepancies I stumbled upon accidentally. If I set my mind to it and write a thesis about it, I might get a degree in French Spelling! It also puts the popularity of the yearly French Dictée (dictation), broadcast on national TV, in a slightly different light….

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

SnapIt

2010-10-13T08:42:00.007+02:00

It sounds as a bit of a weird title, but I will explain in a second why I chose this rather strange title. A few days ago I received an email, offering me a licensed copy of the SnapIt software, if I was prepared to try the software out and write a review about it in my Blog. The name rang a soft bell, and I thought: why the heck not? So here it is!
When I worked as an engineer in a big engineering office as a civil engineer, I was heavily involved in CAD development and training from a civil engineering point of view. No training is complete without training manual, but how do you explain to (often) not very experienced CAD users how to achieve something, like drawing a line?
The easiest way is to show it in a picture and combine it with an instruction.
Example :
1. Click on the “line” button in the left hand menu.
Etc.
I have always created these pictures using the “print screen” option, hence create an image of the full screen, use Control-v to insert the picture in my word document, and then crop it to size, and if necessary reduce or blow the picture up a bit.
Sounds quite tedious, and it was. I have created many a training manual using this rather long winded way.
We had SnapIt software in the office, but I seem to remember it was illegally obtained, and nobody could explain to me how it worked.
Nowadays, being a retired engineer, there is no need to write manuals any more. On the other hand, I have been using the above method not only in Blogs, but also in letters answering questions of clients involving e.g. street maps.
The SnapIt evaluation version I have now does the same thing as the PrintScreen option I have been using, only a lot quicker. The procedure is super simple. Assign a key to SnapIt (I chose F12).
Press F12, and the cursor changes into a crosshair. Click in the screen at the location you want to cut out, move the crosshair to the opposite corner, click again, and, depending on the settings, there will be a JPG , TIF or other picture format on your clipboard. You can either do a Save as of the picture, or use the Autosave option with pre-defined filenames, or copy the picture straight into a word document using Control-v.
The only flaw? What I have explained above would be easier explained if I could “Snap it”! However, I used SnapIt to snap part of a page of the documentation explaining how it works!

After I had kept my part of the bargain, I promptly received my registration code from the software provider, turning my trial copy into an officially registered copy. Julia Taylor, the representative, came up with the following suggestion for those who are interested in the software:
Please mention in your blog about a giveaway for your readers if they also create a review in any blog / forum / twitter / facebook, etc, and contact me with link to the review, I will issue a reg code and name for them.
So if you are interested, you can download a trial copy (click here for the link), then write a review and send details to Ms Taylor at julia.taylor@digeus.com, and Julia is your Aunt!

For our own website click here.

Wok, Woc or Woque?

2010-10-09T07:00:00.000+02:00

During one of the meetings of the Amicale de Cormatin concerning the yearly Loto, a decision had to be made which prizes were going to be bought for the lottery. The chairman of the Amicale produced a catalogue of the hypermarché “Carrefour”, and announced which prizes he had in mind for this event. The secretary kept record of prizes and prices. Somewhere around the first prize of the sixth round something went wrong. Monsieur G. read out “wok, € 39”, and the company went quiet. A number of people looked at each other, and the secretary finally asked “How does one spell that word?”. The French may be renowned for their gastronomy, but when it comes to international cuisine in Burgundy, a Vietnamese or North African restaurant, or a kebab shop, is about the limit of how exotic foreign cooking is around here. For most of those present a wok was something completely unknown and how to write it, wok, wock, woc, woq or woque, was a mistery to them. Fortunately there was one person who knew what it was, and Madame B. was not unwilling share this information. Stir frying obviously did not rank high in her cooking skills, because she happily explained that she had an electric wok, once won in a local lottery, and that she only used the thing to ..... cook large quantities of sauerkraut. And although sauerkraut is an Alsatian specialty, served with big quantities of meat, such as streaky bacon, pork and sausages, it is around here also a very popular winter dish. I am convinced that my Chinese Singaporean friends would laugh their head of if they ever found out to what purpose a wok is used around here.

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Camping Championship Results 2010

2010-09-25T07:00:00.008+02:00

Our company statistic cum bookkeepster cum housewife cum cook has been cooking the books again. As she did last year, she made a stunningly sharp analysis of all those people who made our campsite a success.
And in stead of copying it in, I challenge all interested to click on this link.

For our own website click here.

Know your classics!

2010-09-11T07:00:00.001+02:00

Sue, my better half, cannot suppress a grin whenever I know the answer to one of the questions of the TV quiz Questions pour un Champion, based on what I remember from reading comic strips. A fact is, that, contrary to the UK, comic strips in the Netherlands, and even more so in France and Belgium, are looked at as lecture for grown-ups, and not so much as children’s books. When I was a child, my mother was not very happy when my sister and I were continuously trying to persuade her to buy a copy of Donald Duck, a brand new weekly in those days. She was convinced that reading comic strips would damage our brain. Having said that, traditional Dutch comic strips did not have balloons like American (and French and Belgian) comic strips. Dutch comics had two or three illustrations per episode, with a big field of prose underneath the pictures describing the events. Not dissimilar to Rupert Bear in England, one could say. With the popularisation of Asterix (French) and Tintin (Belgian) the comic strip with text balloons became quite common. But that even real children’s comic strips can have some educational value, may be deduced from the following. When my son was about 10 or 12, he sometimes made remarks of which I thought: ”Where the heck did he pick that up?”. The answer was most of the time “Oh, I read that in one of my comic strips”. In this case he was referring to a very popular Belgian comic strip “Suske and Wiske” by Willy van der Steen.
In the quiz mentioned above one of the questions was “Which painting of a shipwreck caused quite a bit of unrest under the visitors of the Salon of 1819?”. I immediately shouted the answer : “The raft of the Medusa”. That I was right, was confirmed by the quiz master: “Le radeau de la Méduse (The raft of the Medusa, 1818) is the name of a famous painting by Théodore Géricault, nowadays displayed at the Louvre in Paris”. When I had heard the questions, a newspaper article from 1967 sprang to mind, in which was explained that one of the scenes in “Asterix and the first legion” was based on the painting by Géricault. Also questions about famous comic strips, like Asterix and Tintin very often are part of the quiz. And not only the great classics are part of the questionnaire; also modern comics such as XIII and Largo Winch by Vance and van Hamme are regularly coming back as part of the questions. But what I like most is, that I can blurt out the answer at the time a cryptic remark, only meant for the TV audience, appears on the screen even before the question has been read out. One of those hints was something like “A classic nose”, at which point I shouted out immediately “Cleopatra”. Not that I know anything about this Egyptian queen, but in “Asterix and Cleopatra”, throughout the whole book, Asterix, Obelix and Panoramix are continuously referring to Cleopatra’s nose with remarks like : “Oh, what a beautiful nose!; Have you ever seen a nose like this?”. And my answer turned out to be correct! Which proves, that it pays off to know one’s classics….

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

The Quest for a book

2010-08-28T07:00:00.001+02:00

Although Internet shopping is getting more and more popular, I still prefer to walk into a book shop, browse around a bit and buy something if I find what I want. In my view, book shops are superior over Amazon and the like. And of course book shops can only survive if they have regular clients like us. Cluny has a book shop which has served us well in the past, and since I needed 3 sequels in a series of books, I orderded them in Cluny. The books would arrive on Friday; if there were any problems, I would be phoned. I told them I would pick the books up on Saturday. That Saturday, under a beautiful blue sky, I got onto my bicycle, cycled the 8 miles to Cluny only to hear that the delivery was delayed. Not very happy I cycled back, to find a message on the answering machine that the books had arrived in the mean time. After lunch I got on my bike again, returned to Cluny, and heard in the bookshop, that volume 2 was not available. Would I mind to take volumes 1, 3 and 6 (!) in stead? Yes, I did mind, and returned with volumes 1 and 3. I had also made up my mind never to order anything from that shop again. The next stop was Amazon.fr. The book seemed to be available, although not through Amazon themselves, but through a third party. Not long after I had placed my order, emails started coming in from Amazon as well as from the third party. The book was in reprint, hence not available; no money would be taken out of my account, and that was the end of my order. The following option was Fnac, a French competitor of Amazon.fr. And they had a number of copies in store! After a session of literally hours (the Fnac site is top heavy, and works at snail speed through our narrow broadband connection), creating an account, ordering the book and paying via credit card, I found out that something under way had gone dramatically wrong. I had not created an account, not ordered the book, and (luckily) not paid. A few weeks later we had to go to Mâcon for something different, when we passed by a good bookshop called Univers du livre. Out of habit we walked in, and out of curiosity we looked for part 2 on the shelves. And lo and behold, part 2 was available, and on special offer, so our quest for this book ended happily after all!

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Let nature take its course

2010-08-14T07:00:00.000+02:00

On 7 August 2009 we finally managed to get hold of a very small cat, so small it hardly deserved that name, which up to that day had earned a living by scrounging at dinner tables in a village not so far from here.
We were looking for an outdoor cat to keep the mouse and mole population at bay, our friends in Vaux had more than enough wild cats roaming around their house, and that same evening we became the proud owners of a very young cat.
How old she was we did not know, but we guessed she must have been roughly 8 weeks old then. Even though Fifi has grown a lot since, she is still a very small cat given her age.
Recently she started to put on a lot of weight, which more or less coincided with the sighting of an orange-red cat on the premises. This cat seemed very at ease in the courtyard, not being bothered by Fifi, which made us think that this well could have been one of the 3 cats which were born here early May 2008.

Our first thought was that Fifi had been scoffing too many mice, but slowly we started to put Fifi (one) and the red cat (one) together, and the fact that Fifi had not been “done” yet made us think that she could well be pregnant. One evening something unusual happened. Fifi was not to be found in her usual hang outs, like in her own cave, or in the roof of the toilet block for the camp site, but she had draped herself on the doormat in front of our front door, and she certainly did not feel at ease. She even did not make one attempt to slip inside as soon as we opened the door to see how she was. At the end of the evening we decided to sit with her for a while, and finally managed to get her down to her own dwelling, and in her bed lined with her favourite blanket. Around midnight she was the proud but tired mother of two, and the next morning we found out that she had had a litter of four. In the mean time we are looking for a vet, because, however nice these young cats may turn out to be, five cats on the premises could well be more than enough!

For our own website click here.

D-day

2010-07-31T07:00:00.001+02:00

More and more often the local newspaper goes on about D-day, the day that France will go digital. On D-day “someone” will turn a switch somewhere, and from that day on the broadcasting of analogue TV signals will stop and will be replaced by the broadcasting of digital TV signals only. If your TV is older than a couple of years, tough. Most expats here have a satellite dish, so they will not have a problem. However, we, old-fashioned as we are, have an aerial in the attic as old as Methusalem, and an analogue TV. In order not to be deprived of France 1, 2 and 3 in the future, we went to “Boulanger”, asked for information, and went home with a decoding box of € 30 under our arm. At home we installed the box, and yes, as we had feared, no more signal.
Through the grape vine we had heard, that there was a shop in Cluny specialised in digitalisation. The same grape vine had told us, that there were various possibilities : a) our aerial was too old, b) that it was pointed at the wrong transmitter, and c) that there was too much interference of hills or forests to receive a digital signal. We made an appointment in the shop, discussed the possibilities of old or new aerials or a satellite dish, and went home. The engineer of the shop turned up on the day of the appointment, and it turned out that the guy did not even have to see the aerial. He only switched on the TV to see which channels we received, and from that he could deduce that we were pointed at Mont Saint-Vincent. They presently transmit digital and analogue; however, the digital signal is not (yet) transmitted in our direction. His advice was : wait till around D-day; if the box does not work by that time, obviously there is too much interference or too few people this way to start broadcasting in our direction. In that case Sarkozy will most likely take care, that we will get a subsidy either to have a new higher aerial or a satellite dish. So with a bit of luck, the French state might pay (partially) for our satellite dish!

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Practice makes perfect

2010-07-24T07:00:00.002+02:00

After the last ceremony on the eight of May, where the Marseillaise played a prominent part, it was time for a new episode on the fourteenth of July. Everybody was gathered around the mairie, waiting for marching orders, when the flag carrier Monsieur N. whispered something in Monsieur P.’s ear. He in turn opened the boot of his car, got the new amplifier out and started prodding and poking at the back of the thing, following the whispered instructions of Monsieur N. After a short while we heard the beginning of the Marseillaise at an acceptable volume. In one word, Monsieur P. was ready for the challenge! Although ten minutes later than usual, we were ready to face the music in front of the monument, at quarter past eleven. The wreath was laid, and it was time for the obligatory speech dictated by Paris. However, this bit was skipped, and Monsieur P. asked for attention. He read out a letter he and some of his friends had written to FNAC. FNAC is a big French chain, which recently had written out a photo competitition. The winning photograph in the catagory “Politically incorrect” had been one of a young guy, trousers down on his ankles, wiping his behind with the French Tricolore. This sort of thing does not go down very well in Sarko’s France, and it certainly did not go down well with Monsier P. He ended his speech with the words “And I am curious to read their answer”, after which we indulged in a shortened version of the Marseillaise.
In the mean time the "Journal Officiel" has published a decree instigated by Michèle Alliot-Marie (Minister of justice), whereby an insult of the French flag is punishable with a fine of max. € 1500. Monsieur P. should be a bit more careful in the future; before you know it, fooling around with the Marseillaise could become a crime as well!

For our own website click here.

Say cheese, pease

2010-07-17T07:00:00.000+02:00

What could possibly be wrong with French cheese, to invoke me to write a Blog about Dutch cheese? There is certainly nothing wrong with French cheese, even better, I love it, but what they sell in the supermarkets as Dutch cheese here (Gouda, Edam, Leerdam) resembles putty, or at best plastic. Everybody has sometimes, all of a sudden, a craving for a good strong cheese, in case of the British a nice hard cheddar.
One day we were having lunch in Cluny, in our favourite hang-out, when the lady who ran the show came to us, told us about two Dutch women who had set up shop in Cluny’s Saturday market, and gave us a flyer.
The next Saturday, not 100 % convinced yet, we went looking for these two women. Opposite the ticket office for the abbey, on a little square, we found them.
Suus en Paula van der Linden are living in France for some time now, sell on various markets around here, sell cheese from their place as well, and from the look of it, they are doing quite well. Their cheeses are selling like hot buns, and even the Brits are impressed with the variety of cheeses they are selling. And the sell not only cow’s cheese, no, they also sell sheep’s and goat’s cheeses.
Not just to support Suus and Paula, but also to help our French, Dutch and Anglophone friends, we have picked up a handful of flyers from Suus and Paula, and we are distributing those among them. We have also put flyers in the information folders we use for the gîtes and the campsite. That this sort of publicity works, may be deduced from the piece of cheese we got off them the other day when we went to buy some cheese. And really, believe me or not, that is not why we are doing it!

For our own website click here.

Back to the future

2010-07-03T07:00:00.005+02:00

Since I started this blog I have already written so many articles about the various ceremonies around here, that I have created a separate label for those pieces. Those interested in the continuing story of Monsieur P. and our mayor, and the struggle with modern technology of those two, can click on the label “Ceremony” in the right hand menu.
The call to arms of General de Gaulle in which he ordered the French to take up arms against the Germans in stead of collaborating with Pétain and his gang 70 years ago was celebrated big time this year in France. We were rather curious how the ceremony at Bois Dernier would go this year. Would Monsieur P. be able to handle the brand new amplifier, or would he again require the assistance of the flag carrier Monsieur N.?
Around six thirty in the evening an extremely small group had gathered near the Mairie. It was really only a handful of people, which surprised us in view of the 70 years celebration of the event. Even the thriving force behind it, Monsieur P. was not there. Anyway, what had to be done had to be done, Monsieur P. or no Monsieur P. We were spread over fewer cars than normal, and the co-voiturage equippe drove off to Bois Dernier. To our relief we saw that Monsieur P. was already there, his car parked near the monument. After the wreath laying was done and after the mayor had read the speech from “Paris”, Monsieur P. asked one of the youngest pompiers, a girl in her early teens, to read out De Gaulle’s words. After this had been accomplished, it was time for the musical closure of the ceremony.

We were completely baffled when Monsieur P. walked to his car, opened the boot, and revealed to us his pre-historic cassette player. As if it had never been away, it churned out a shrieking, howling and crackling rendition of General de Gaulle’s speech (very authentic!), a ditto version of the Chant des Partisans and the best version of the Marseillaise ever played (apart from the one in Casablanca of course).
May we draw the conclusion that Monsieur P. has given up when it comes to modern technology? Time will tell....

For our own website click here.

Country bumpkins and concert etiquette

2010-06-19T07:00:00.004+02:00

It is summer, and hence festivals around here are all in full swing. Cormatin boasts each year two important festivals, the guitar festival (Guitares en Cormatinois - June/July) and the theatre festival (Les Rendez-Vous de Cormatin - July/August). The guitar festival is quite popular, also with tourists. Most likely music is much more accessible for foreigners than plays in French. Almost every year the opening of the guitar festival takes place in the romanesque church of Malay with a concert by the nationally well known French guitar player Emmanuel Rossfelder. This year he did not open with a solo concert; this time he accompanied the mezzo-soprano Yana Boukoff (of Yugoslavian origin) with a program called Viva España.
The program consisted of mainly Spanish music (not illogical, given the title), although the program also showed pieces like Bach’s “Jesus joy of man’s desire”, two pieces by Heitor Villa Lobos (Brasilian) and the well known aria from Bizet’s (French) Carmen “L’amour est une oiseau rebelle” (Habanera). As an encore they played Bach/Gounod’s “Ave Maria”, a German/French cooperation. But who cares, as long as the music is good! The program was nicely balanced between instrumental and accompanied vocal pieces. For me, as the father of a classical guitar player, it was really nice to hear again many pieces my son once had on his repertoire. There were “Andaluza” written by Granados, the famous tremolo piece “Recuerdos de la Alhambra” and the “Jota” by Tárrega, all played with gusto and technically perfect. And also the “Canciones antiguas” by Garcia Lorca were not unknown to me.
What I find very amusing during these sort of concerts in this environment is the (lack of knowledge of) concert etiquette. I have learned it, as many people, the hard way, e.g. by applauding at the wrong instant. And that certainly took me a number of concerts. I must say, that it all sounds easy for the average visitor of concerts, but what about those who rarely see the inside of a concert hall? Applauding during the performance? Very normal during jazz concerts; almost impolite not to clap after a solo. Applauding during an opera, after a beautifully performed aria? Perfectly ok, even shouting Bravo is allowed. Clapping after a good solo dance in a ballet? Nothing wrong with that either. But during a classical recital, after each part of “Seven popular songs” by de Falla? Ai, ai, ai, almost a deadly sin. It is also not uncommon, not to applaud in between pieces when the pieces are written by the same composer. But there are also exceptions to this rule....
I have to confess, that sometimes I lost count, causing me to applaud with the majority of the audience as well. Having said this, for those who lost count or do not remember whether a piece consists of three or four parts, it should be clear from the body language of the artists whether a piece is finished or not. Rossfelder for example raises his guitar demonstratively when he finishes his piece. But again, in this audience of farmers, ex-farmers or villagers the lack of etiquette seems to be no problem for the performers. Rossfelder as well as Boukoff were very grateful for every “illegal” applause. Most likely they thought to be better of with a public that did not exactly know how to “behave”, but was at least appreciating the music they played to the full extent!

For our own website click here.

A blogging community

2010-06-16T10:42:00.005+02:00

What is more flattering for a blogger than to discover that people are actually reading his articles, and even enjoy them?
Not much, really.
I have had some unexpected positive reactions from an American couple living part time in a nearby village, but who else but family and friends is reading those little stories one churns out every so often?
Well, more than one thinks; living proof can be found on the following links.

Keith Eckstein reviews blogs about France on a regular basis, and I was happy, not to say a bit proud that he chose my blog recently to be reviewed, and published a nice rundown of it. Read for yourself what he has to say about it!

Before my blog was chosen, my better half’s blog has been reviewed by Keith as well.

Chris and Linda are (in my eyes) real bloggers.
At least Linda Hubbard blogs every day, which makes her stories in general short and very readable.

Chris Gulker writes less frequent, and consequently his articles are slightly longer, however not less readable.

My own blogs are normally published once every fortnight, unless I have got extra material to be published on my Saturday off. Since I have just made a new exception to my own rules, I can finally make an attempt to be a bit less long winded!

For our own website click here.

Repeated offenders

2010-06-12T07:00:00.000+02:00

My better half has already published a Blog dedicated to guests who not only are regularly coming back to La Tuilerie, but who also (on a voluntary basis!) help out in making the vegetable plot ready for the summer and by splitting big logs which are to big to fit in the wood burner.
Fortunately they are not the only ones who seem to like it so much here. We have a number of guests, campers as well as gîte lodgers, whom we can welcome on a regular basis over a number of years. And what is better than discussing the state of affairs in Cormatin as well as in their home country over a nice glass of whine in a sunny patch in our garden?
People come here for a number of reasons. Part of our clientèle are very much attracted by the vicinity of Taizé, where they can follow the services whenever they wish, but where they are not submerged in the hubbub of 6000 youngsters; others come here with bicycles, skeelers or good walking shoes in order to do reconnaissance of the many possibilities the Voie Verte has to offer; some people come to indulge in the over abundance of romanesque (norman) architecture; and of course there are those who like to chill out for a week after having been in the rat race for a year.
Recently we had a couple here for the third year, who came here the first time after in depth investigations. Their son in law, an acquaintance of ours, popped in one day in 2008 on his way to a different holiday destination in the South of France, seemingly for a cup of coffee. however, he was told by his in laws to take pictures, inspect the place thoroughly and find an answer to the question of questions “Is everything clean there?”.
Obvioulsly his reconnaissance satisfied his in laws, because that same autumn Hermann and Carla became our guests. We got on very well, and when they left they booked straight away for 2009. That year they ordered a meal, a service we render, if convenient for both parties, on their arrival day. Our guests share our table, and we as well as they find it a pleasant way to getting to know each other a bit better. Sue always tries to come up with something local, and her boeuf Bourgignon can compete with the same dish pepared at La Terrasse in Cormatin (which we find the best within a radius of 50 miles). And although Hermann and Carla could not give us a definite date for 2010, it was quite obvious that they would come back again.
And lo and behold, by the end of 2009 they made another reservation for two weeks, under the “condition” that we would feed them again a boeuf Bourgignon. But that was not all. A couple of days before they arrived, another e-mail came in with the question whether we would appreciate it if Carla brought an Indonesian meal over for the second evening.
There are few things in this part of the world that I miss every so often, and one of them is a genuine Indonsian meal, in the Netherlands, and certainly around the Hague, readily available everywhere. So the second night the tables were turned, as a matter of speech, and we sat at their table and enjoyed a wonderful meal with nassi putih (white rice), sajur lodeh (vegetables in coconut milk), babi ketjap (pork in sweet soy sauce), rendang (spicy beef) and ajam semoor (well simmered chicken).
And that is, irrespective of the quality of French cooking, one of the few things I miss every so often; a simple, good Indonesian meal.

For our own website click here.

Questions pour un champion

2010-06-05T07:00:00.005+02:00

How to improve your French listening skills, if you hardly ever have contact with Frenchmen? One way is listening to radio or TV. However, whilst living in the Netherlands I was never a keen TV watcher, and the French channels we can get, France 1, 2 and 3, are not much better than the Dutch ones. The only watchable programs were the weather forecast and the news.
Clear pronunciation and diction, known subjects, at least that did not have disaster written all over it. Some time later we discovered game programs and quizzes. After watching some rather stupid programs for a couple of weeks, we stumbled upon Questions pour un Champion. The program has just celebrated its 20th birthday, has all these 20 years been presented by the same charismatic presenter, Julien Lepers, and is immensely popular. I will not bore the reader with a description of the rules of the game, but the candidates, each having a tremendous general knowledge, must answer question on many subjects, such as art, science, gastronomy, geography, history, etc. The presenter asks the questions in a tempo that makes a machinegun sound like an old lady, because there is also a time limit in answering. We normally switch on the subtitles for the deaf, because without that it really goes far too fast most of the time. Not only is it good for our French, but we started to like the program as well. Nowadays we both are sitting in front of the TV, shouting out the answer on the rare occasion that the candidate has not got the answer before us. By now we are so addicted, that we switch on the answering machine between 17h50 and 18h30, because we do not want to be disturbed during that time!

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

A tragedy

2010-05-29T07:00:00.004+02:00

When we came here, in 2005, there was a huge building bordering the Voie Verte, on which was written in mega letter size “MUSEE DU VELO”. It would be quite difficult to come up with a better location for a museum dedicated to the bicycle. The owner, a man from Tournus, rented the building and had on display a collection of over 200 old and new(er) bicycles, bicycle tax shields from the Netherlands and Belgium, posters for the Tour de France, trophies, jerseys in various colours, in short anything remotely connected to bicycles and bicycle racing. We have been there a number of times, and not just for the collection (after the 3rd visit one knows what there is on display). It was also a place where one could, after a long cycle ride on a hot day, sit down and have a drink or an ice cream. Unfortunately, in 2007 the museum closed down. According to those in the know it closed because of the declining number of visitors, and because the commune of Cormatin did not provide sufficient support (read subsidies). The next year the building reopened, this time carrying the name of Musée du Poilu. Poilu (=hairy) was the name for the French soldiers fighting during the Great War. The museum displays artefacts and utensils made by the soldiers in the trenches in between charges. As materials they used everything that was abundant in the trenches: shrapnel, cartouches, even aluminium from the ignition mechanism of grenades, brass, cartridge cases, shells. The collection is interesting enough, but, although the Great War has asked its toll in this part of France just as in any other part, the real fighting took place much further North from here, this location seems to me (literally) a bit out of place. Having said that, the museum is still open, and features in the summertime theatre plays about the home front during the Great War. There certainly seems to be a market for this museum.
In our local variety of the Cormatin Times we saw recently articles emerging about a resurfacing of the Musée du Vélo (in the words of their PR manager “Unique en France”), not in Cormatin however, but in Tournus. And indeed, the museum will reopen on June 19, and the Commune of Tournus has offered the space for this museum, for a trial period of 3 months. The tragedy of it all is, that the owner of the collection, Michel Grézaud, did not live to see the day. He died beginning of this month, just before his dream would have come true again.....

For our own website click here.

Living history

2010-05-22T07:00:00.005+02:00

The nerve centre of all information in a small village like Cormatin is undoubtedly the local Tabac. Everybody visits this shop either daily or weekly, to buy the local paper, cigarettes, a magazine or a greeting card. During one of my visits I noticed an announcement, saying that the following evening a lecture would be held with as subject Cormatin and the resistance during WW II and the influence of general de Gaulle in Burgundy.
The connection between those two subjects was not immediately clear, but that would undoubtedly be revealed during the lecture. And although we were expecting guests for our gîte that day, we had decided that on early arrival of those guests (which they did) we could attend the evening. So on the night concerned we drove up to Salle Beun, the village house, where everyone in our village who could read was gathered.
The object of this particular Blog is not to give a run down on the lecture itself. But one has to admit, that Gilles Plattret, historian, writer, journalist, politician and lecturer (he appears to be quite popular as “conférancier” - meaning stand-up comedian in Dutch! - in Saône-et-Loire) delivered an excellent story about how the war started, what the influence was of the line of demarcation (which ran not far from Cormatin) between “free” Vichy France and its occupied northern counterpart, when and how the resistance movement started and what the influence was of de Gaulle in ’40-’45 in communities like Cormatin. The lecture was illustrated with a projection of images of this period. No need to say, that those who were born and brought up in Cormatin regularly threw in remarks and comments about the contents of those pictures.
What I found most interesting during the presentation was the personalized way Plattret interacted with his audience. Of course our Monsieur P. was prominently there. Plattret told several anecdotes, in which Monsieur P.’s father (deported and victim of the camps), and Monsieur P. himself (deported and survivor of Buchenwald) played an important role. But not only Monsieur P.’s name was mentioned. Several (even for us) well known names were mentioned, of whom in many cases the descendants were amongst the audience.
This evening proved to me that a presentation about history, no matter how well documented and presented, certainly gains accessibility for a bigger public when the presenter somehow has personal ties with the subject and with the audience itself.
I was well impressed. and I will keep an eye out for the name of Gilles Plattret as of now.

For our own website click here.

Village gossip

2010-05-15T07:00:00.004+02:00

It may be clear from this Blog that village life in Cormatin is not dissimilar to the stereotypical life in the fictitious village of Clochemerle.
A previous posting got an unexpected follow-up.

Understanding of modern technology by older citizens and progress of this technology do not always go hand in hand. The new amplifier cum CD-player, recently obtained by the commune (and not, as I wrongly stated earlier, by our war veteran and deportee Monsieur P.) was supposed to make the most recent ceremony (the wreath laying at the Monument for those who gave their lives for France during the wars) last Liberation Day a feast for the ears. After the various speeches the Marseillaise was supposed to be played through the amplifier at an acceptable, but clearly audible volume. However, Monsieur P. had forgotten how the thing worked. After what seems to be an eternity, during which Monsieur P. pressed buttons, turned knobs, at the end assisted by the flag bearer, who had to lower the flag for this purpose, all of a sudden the Marseillaise blurted out over Cormatin at House Party volume. It was loud enough to wake the fallen from their graves. But the official part was not over yet. Once every heart had recovered from the sudden shock, the whole group moved off to the monument for the deportees, just outside the village. Those who thought that Monsieur P. had left the amplifier running, just to be sure, were wrong. This time he could not get the thing working at all. The crowd started to get a bit restless, but Monsieur P. had a solution: if the blooming thing would not work, we could beat it, by SINGING the Marseillaise! There are French politicians, who are adamant that foreigners and French should be able to sing and know the words of the Marseillaise. If these politicians had had their way, the performance would have been great. However, obviously they had not had their way, and the majority of those present hummed away, or (amongst others the mayor) kept their mouth shut.
Anyway, after this rather embarrassing intermezzo the mayor announced the venue of the vin d’honneur, and he also explained that a number of ex-combatants and/or resistance fighters would be presented with “Un diplôme d’honneur pour les vétérans de la Seconde Guerre Mondiale”. This had to be handled before the wine started to flow, and one of the “lucky” ones was Monsieur P. After this last eruption of the ceremonial part of the day, Monsieur P. said that he would like to say a few words. But instead of thanking Mayor and Government for this generous diploma, he complained about the fact that “Paris”, so many years after the events, could not come up with something better and more apppropriate than a shoddy piece of paper in flyer format. Every other word he used was “ridicule”. And I think, that most people present, including the Mayor, deep down in their heart agreed with what monsieur P. had to say that day.

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

How to read a traffic sign?

2010-05-08T07:00:00.004+02:00

Until recently there was an agricultural path between Chazelle and La Bergerie, the other hamlet that resorts under the jurisdiction of Cormatin. It was, apart from the last 100 m, a macadam road. Since the road has been used as a deviation during roadworks in Chazelle, the status has changed to road “Communale”, and the last bit of sand has made place for asphalt. After the road had been opened to the public (before that it was a “secret” road only known by insiders) a new traffic sign appeared on the side of La Bergerie. At the Chazelle side the old sign (voie agricole) is still there. The new sign consists of a no-entry sign, and underneath it it says : “Except for school busses from 8h15 to 8h30 and from 17h00 to 17h15”. That seemed a bit strange to me: it suggests that the road is closed throughout the day, and only school busses are allowed there twice a day for a period of 15 minutes. In the other direction the road is open all day. It would effectively turn the road into a one way street. Since we had to go to the mairie for something different, we asked the question about the new road sign. No, we had completely misunderstood it, was the answer.
It clearly said - according to the deputy mayor: the road is only closed for all cars driving from La Bergerie to Chazelle during 15 minutes in the morning and in the afternoon, at the time the school bus uses the road from Chazelle to La Bergerie. This would prevent the school bus from having to dive into the roadside when cars are approaching from the other direction. Obviously the guy who wrote the sign wanted to make it extra clear, but doing it this way he actually obscured the issue. He should have said “Only between 8h15 and 8h30 and between 17h00 and 17h15”, without mentioning school busses. Anyway, we are now in the know, and we are happily using this handy short-cut, but only outside the mentioned hours!

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Fancy a quick bite?

2010-04-24T07:00:00.006+02:00

The people who live in Burgundy enjoy an extensive lunch. In the evening they eat a light meal, often composed of the leftovers of the lunch. In that sense we have not really integrated; we have a proper dinner, and prefer something light for lunch. It would be nice to be able to walk into a fish and chips shop when one is not at home during lunch time; however, these do not exist in this part of the world… Although, by now we have found some alternatives.
The most logical one seems to be a “Sandwicherie”. Although French sandwiches do not resemble British ones; a French sandwich is usually a French loaf with savoury filling. Normally baker shops (Boulangerie and/or Pâtisserie) offer these French sandwiches, but in the tourist season they might sell slices of pizzas and small quiches as well. But be aware, bakers open extremely early in the morning, and usually close around 12h00 for a couple of hours. Along the Voie Verte near Chazelle there was a Sandwicherie, but unfortunately this will not re-open this year.
For those who want something not too heavy and warm for lunch, the kebab shop might be worth considering. Again, kebabs here are quite different from the English equivalent. They sell all sorts of kebabs in different guises. There is an “assiette kebab”, a “sandwich kebab” and a “galette kebab”; the assiette is a plate with meat, French fries, green salad and sauce blanche and/or harissa (spicy). The sandwich is identical but does not come with French fries; everything is propped into half a loaf of Turkish bread. The galette is again the same as the sandwich, but in stead of bread they use a thin wrap. There is a good kebab shop in Cluny, called Bosphorus”, and every bigger place or even village might host one or more kebab shops.
There is also something called “casse-croûte”, which literally means “packed lunch”. It is often displayed on signs (L’Orée-du-Bois, along the Voie Verte), and sometimes it even is the name of the establishment. The menu is simple; there is normally a choice of sandwiches, salads, and French fries with a choice of meat. Our favourite in Cluny is steak-haché frites, a hamburger like piece of (quality) minced meat with French fries. The whole concoction is also available as sandwich steak-haché frites, where everything is propped in between the two halves of a baguette. Still another variation is something called steak-haché au cheval, where the “au cheval” does not stand for the type of meat; the hamburger is topped by a fried egg, which sits on top of the hamburger as if riding a horse (hence “au cheval”). It is safe to eat, even for Brits!
Of course there also pizzerias and normal restaurants. It is often worth to look out for the plat du jour. Usually restaurants offer a menu du jour (starter, main course and dessert - price range approx. € 13) and a plat du jour (price range under € 10), which is the main course only. Our Monique, the owner of La Terrasse in Cormatin often has Boeuf Bourgignon as plat du jour. In my opinion, and I tried a few in the region, she makes the best within a radius of 30 miles. Another of our favourites at La Terrasse is the salade Bressane, a green salad with maïs and chicken livers. However, most salads there are good quality and big enough for a normal meal.
But the real die-hards, craving for fast food, will have a hard time in this part of France. The nearest McDonald’s is either in Mâcon or in Chalon, hence approx. 35 km from here. Saône-et-Loire, our Département, boasts 6 McDonald’s outlets. Do you think that this is much? Saône-et-Loire covers an area of 8500 square kilometers and a population of 550000. Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands has a (land) area of 220 square kilometres and 750000 inhabitants. For those who love statistics:
Saône-et-Loire has 1 McDomald’s outlet per 90000 inhabitants; Amsterdam has 1 per 47000, hence a density twice as high.
Saône-et-Loire has 1 outlet per 1400 square kilometers, Amsterdam 1 per 14 square kilometer, hence a density 100 x as high.
As far as I am concerned, I will stick to the local food; I was never keen on beef burgers anyway!

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Easter market in Louhans

2010-04-10T07:00:00.006+02:00

For those who are following this Blog via Facebook or email: the accompanying slide show is only visible on the Blog itself.

We advise guests, who show a keen interest in markets, to visit the Monday market in Louhans. Not only is Louhans a nice little town, with a lively newspaper printing museum, but on Monday is boasts one of the best markets in the area. It is not really next door (35 miles), but the road leading there is pleasant and not very busy. The whole town has been turned into one huge market stall, where one can buy vegetables, fruit, meat, clothing, gadgets, household goods (even Tupperware!), etc. You will also find the occasional guy shouting out all the marvels his “magic cutter” performs on melons, tomatoes and the like.
The real attraction however is the “animal market”. At the edge of the town, just outside the centre, the market stretches out for another mile or so. Here they sell rabbits, goats, ponies, dogs, cats, ducks, chickens, etc. in all shapes and sizes. The buyers go home with there newly acquired friends locked up in cardboard boxes with air holes, to make sure their pets survive the journey.

One of the best days to visit this market is on Easter Monday. The town is seething with people (comparable to New Years Eve on Trafalgar Square), one has to park his car 1 mile before the centre of town. It would take half an hours drive, if not more, to reach a designated parking area at the edge of town from there. This Easter Monday was a beautiful spring day, hence most plants and trees were green and in full bloom. It seemed, like half the population of Saône-et-Loire had come to Louhans. The one thing which is impossible on a day like that, is to haven lunch somewhere in town. All restaurants were not only full, but also fully booked. The few stalls selling sandwiches had long queues of people waiting for their bite. Finally, we managed to buy a piece of pizza and a quiche at a baker near where we parked. Simple as it was, it tasted like manna from heaven!

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Jonquilles

2010-03-27T07:00:00.004+01:00

A couple of years ago - we had just moved to France - we were regularly driving around to discover the area where we lived. On one of those outings we noticed quite a few brand-new direction signs; some said Bonnay, some said “jonquilles”, others were in the shape of a daffodil or had a daffodil painted on it.
In this area it is not uncommon that villages like Bonnay set out organised walks or cycle trips, whereby these randonnées often carry poetic names like “jonquilles” (daffodils) or “jouvence” (source, fountain). We decided to follow the signs, but at some stage the signs disappeared, and we did not get any wiser. Some years later - by then we had made some friends in that area - we found out that those signs were put up in spring, pointing towards areas in the woods where wild daffodils flowered. This spring (spring had literally just broken out, and that is how winter ends here) we went over to see our friends, and noticed the “jonquilles” signs. Our friends told us, what a good place was to look for these daffodils, and last Saturday we took the camera, got into the car and drove off to the woods around Bonnay in search of the French equivalent of the Dutch bulb-fields. When we arrived there, there was hardly a car to be seen on the grass field near the forest. We were obviously too early; one could see the daffodils, and plenty of them, but there were no flowers yet. Anyway, we had a pleasant walk, and decided to come back in a couple of days. Last Wednesday, it was beautiful weather, we went out to the wood again.
This time the field that served as a parking area was swarming with cars and people. We had come at the right time, at least that is what we thought, because people emerged from the forest with arms full of daffodils (and that is no exaggeration!). As is common around here, the “foyer rural” of a nearby village had set up a drinks stall, where one could buy a refreshment at very reasonable prices.
Once we entered the wood we realised how much damage can be caused by a horde of “nature lovers” in a relatively short period of time. Where once daffodils had flowered, it looked like a pitch where a number of gladiators had staged a fight. The only flowers that had escaped the pillage, were hidden under the thorny branches of a bramble bush. The few photographs I managed to take are of the daffodils that could not be picked without cutting open your hands. Anyway, it looks like if I ever would like to see a field of daffodils in full glory, I will have to go back to the Netherlands, to admire them in or around Keukenhof....

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Tour de France 2010

2010-03-13T07:00:00.003+01:00

Cycle-racing in France is, like in Belgium and the Netherlands, a big thing. As soon as there is talk of a cycling event, no matter how big or small, they are omni-present; men, and sometimes women, dressed in brightly-coloured lycra, bent over their handle bars, whereby the first guy often shouts out loud and inarticulate words, or raise a hand or an arm to warn the crowd behind him for a pothole in the road, a walker, a parked car, or an aged person crossing the road.
And events there are plenty in France. In June, when the Tour de France fever hits France once again, many cyclists throughout the country start their own modest Tour de Village, Tour de Département, Tour de Région or even Tour d’Environnement. And each of these lycra-clad people has his own hero to project himself onto: Alberto Contador, Lance Armstrong, Jan Ullrich, Indurain, LeMond, or for the older ones Hinault, Mercx, Anquetil, Bahamontes...
Also Cormatin is not spared this ordeal. Last year, 2009, the Route de Saône-et-Loire (a race of four stages) passed through Cormatin. Hours before hand the roads were closed, in order to ensure free passage for the breakaway or for the peloton thus reducing the chance of nasty accidents. But this race is nothing compared to the real French classic, the Tour de France.
In 2006 the Tour did not (yet) pass through Cormatin, however the finish of the eighteenth stage was in Mâcon. Reason for some of our fanatic cycling fans to get on their bikes and cycle to Mâcon to experience the spectacle. They have been regular returnees to our campsite ever since! The next day the Tour continued starting in Le Creusot and finishing this time trial in Montceau-les-Mines. No doubt the cyclists were brought to Le Creusot by bus or train.
In 2007 the sixth stage (between Semur-en-Auxois and Bourg-en-Bresse, approx. 200 km) passed throug our village, Cormatin. From well before lunch until approx. 17h00 quite a number of roads were closed, amongst them the main road D981 from Cluny direction Givry vv., thus making space for the passing of the caravan followed by the cyclists. The circus certainly was in full swing; an endless row of hooting cars “decorated” with adverts, driving through the village at neck breaking speed, in the meantime throwing promotion material into the crowd; hundreds of spectators of whom several threw themselves almost in front of the cars in order to obtain that wonderful cardboard sunshade....
And then finally the climax, a coloured band travelling so fast that the faces of the racers were no more than a vague blur. That particular year we had quite a few campers on the site who had chosen to stay with us especially for this occasion. A couple of them were very keen to see an intermediate sprint at Brancion. Unfortunately they never made it, partially because of road closures and partially because they did not have a detailed enough map to avoid the main roads....
In 2010 anothe stage starts nearby Cormatin. The seventh stage starts on Saturday 10 July 2010 from Tournus (25 km) for a stage of 161 km to Station les Rousses. We are really curious which of our cycling die-hards will be staying with us again!

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

The tempest

2010-03-01T09:46:00.005+01:00

The short slideshow accompanying this Blog shows some pictures of the flood in the Netherlands in February 1953 and France in February 2010.

Whenever there is a gale blowing around the house I start feeling restless and uneasy. It brings back memories of the big flood of February 1953 in the South-Western part of the Netherlands, which inundated a big part of the country. I was a child then; I was not allowed to go to bed that night, which I, as a child, thought was extremely exciting.
My mother had prepared a little bag with “valuables”, which stood in the corridor, ready to be taken with us in case we had to be evacuated. I lived in Delft at the time, which lies approx. 1 meter below sea level. My father was glued to the radio (of course we did not have TV in those days) waiting for the message that one of the crucial dikes near Rotterdam had caved in, in which case Delft and surroundings were under serious threat of being inundated.
The days after the tempest were also very strange; my school was a collection point for clothing and blankets for those who lost their home due to the flood. Also slowly film coverage became available in the news reels of the cinemas; as said before, TV was hardly known then. When the French coastal region was under “vigilance rouge” (the highest alarm level) Burgundy was under vigilance orange. Contrary to February last year, when we were severely hit by a tempest, this time Xynthia skirted Burgundy. However, in the evening news of February 28 I recognised the same images; houses just poking out of the water, people being carried out of their houses, helicopters rescuing peoples from roofs....
The death toll in the Netherlands in 1953 mounted 1800; the flood in France made approx. 50 deadly victims. And no matter how different the scale of both events was, the desperation transmitted by the TV images was he same in 1953 as in 2010.

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

The Crescent Jazzclub

2010-02-27T07:00:00.002+01:00

After having found Jazz à Trivy, I wondered whether there actually might be an ordinary jazz club somewhere in the vicinity. In the summertime Cluny hosts occasional jazz concerts in the local theatres, and Couches has a rather prestigious jazz festival in the summer, but I was more looking for something like the Ronny Scott Club, only at a smaller scale. In Mâcon (not really next door, approx. 35 km from here) I had found a jazz club called the Crescent Jazzclub. It is smack in the middle of town, and hosts regular concerts and jam sessions. It looked like the prototype of the old fashioned jazz clubs from the sixties; smoky and with a very low ceiling. Although smoking is no longer allowed in French public places, the rest of the description fits the place well. It is located in an old, very small (wine)cellar, which is so low, that a bass player cannot stand his instrument upright. The photo actually shows the amount of people that fit in; one is hard pushed to squeeze more in. One night we went there, wisely combining the concert with having a meal out; we paid entrance fee and membership fee (€ 3.50 for a year) and went inside. The music was rather boring, and that is an understatement. We left the club during the break. A couple of weeks later we gave it a second try, because a “young, promising” guitarist was playing in the Crescent. After these two disappointing experiences we left the Crescent for what it was, although I keep an eye on their program. One never knows, maybe one day a good group might be playing there. The only thing which impressed me, was how the musicians handled the volume they were playing at. Firstly they played acoustically, or, in case of the guitar player, used the amplifier with moderation, and secondly, in case of e.g. the drummers, they managed to play in such a way that one was not blown away by the noise. That is certainly one of the minus points of most Dutch jazz venues; they play at a volume sufficient to bring down a stadium like Wembley, and than they wonder why so many of their fans have problems with their ears!

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Loto, Quine, Kien and Bingo

2010-02-20T07:00:00.004+01:00

Actually I am not interested in Bingo or Loto, as it is called in France, at all. When living in the Netherlands, I played Bingo only once (an experience I gladly forgot!) and I hardly remember anything of it.
However one thing has intrigued me for a long time. As a child, my mother sometimes allowed me to play with small wooden circular pieces of wood, with a number written on it. And she referred to those small discs as being part of a Kien (pronounce Keen) game.
When we were explained the rules of Loto more than a year ago, we were told that we had to shout “Quine” (pronounce Keen) when we had a full card. Assuming there is a link between those two words is, in Dutch, a matter of applying non-scientifically founded etymology, or popular etymology. Anyway, Wikipedia could possibly help here.
The origin of the game lies in Italy, where it was played around 1530 as Lotto. The word Bingo is derived from the American version of the game, which was played in the twenties on a form called Beano. The word Beano in itself is derived from the beans which were used to cover the numbers on the card. Hence Beano was corrupted to Bingo.
The Dutch word Kien is derived from the French word Quine, which comes from the Latin word Quini (= 5), and which refers to the 5 numbers on each row of a Loto card. The forms used as well as the rules of the game seem to vary per nationality.
The French (Loto) and the English (Bingo) use forms of 3 rows and 9 columns, whereby the first column is meant for the numbers 1 to 9, the second for 10 to 19, etc. The last row is for 80 to 90. This makes checking the numbers relatively easy. The game can be played per row (the winner is the first one who fills a row) per 2 rows (as before but with 2 rows) or per full card. When one plays by row, the French call out “Quine” (= 5); when one plays for a full card the French shout “Carton plein”.
The Americans, as the Dutch (Bingo), play on a form of 5 x 5 squares, whereby the square in the middle does not contain a number. The 24 numbers (between 1 and 75) are either randomly put on the form, or sorted per column (1-15, 16-30, etc.). Here one can also play per row, per column, per square or per any other form determined beforehand, or of course, per full card.
And all this, because I was curious about the relation between the words Kien and Quine!

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

French Bureaucracy

2010-02-13T07:00:00.004+01:00

Many of our English friends are getting upset over and over again whenever they only think of French bureaucracy. As someone who lived his whole life in the Netherlands, the French bureaucrats seem to be a lot more laid back than their Dutch colleagues. Having said that, sometimes it has advantages when you know beforehand how a civil servant is going to react; one can actually anticipate a bit that way.
The last time we had to go to the Mairie was to obtain the yearly “certificat de vie”, without which Dutch insurance companies do not pay out annuities. This is a very relaxed exercise; you hand in your form, the secretary asks “Comme l’habitude?”, she writes something, seals it with a stamp and a few seconds later you are back on the street, with a form that would even satisfy the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, and without any costs. Just pointing at a doorknob in a Dutch town hall would set you back at least € 10! We were just about to set off for lunch, when one of the local officials, in charge of the “Recensement” (Census) who saw us walking past his window, came after us.
Could we spare some time to fill in some questionnaires? It would save him the 3 km trip from the town hall to our house....
The French do not keep a proper record of who is living where and since when; the only way they keep track of demography is the census. The INSEE (Bureau of Statistics) organises every year a number of censuses, spread over the whole of France. It is not organised by postal code or by Canton, because Cormatin is on the list for 2010, whilst Saint-Gengoux, capital of our Canton with the same postal code is up in 2013.
The guy who called us back was Pierre M., a very amiable man whom we know quite well now because he is always present whenever an event in Cormatin is being prepared. So a few minutes later we answered the questions on his questionnaire, which were questions for the two of us: when did we move to France, were we living together, what sort of heating did we use in the house, etc.
After that we had to fill in a personal questionnaire, about educational and professional backgrounds, etc. Whenever we did not understand a question, and he thought it was irrelevant (or he could not be asked to explain!), he waved his hand as if to say “Ah, why don’t we forget about that one!”. After 15 minutes we were released with the words: “Well, that got you off the hook for another 5 years!”. Anyway, if my English friends read how easy these sort of things are handled in the “campagne”, they should stop moaning about French bureaucracy. And if they still insist, I would advise them to move to the Netherlands for just one month, and then say what they think about the French!

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Bingo! (part 2 and last)

2010-02-01T15:15:00.001+01:00

For part 1 of this thrilling story click here.
The yearly Loto is over again! We had, as good citizens, flogged off all our 20 Loto cards to friends and relatives, and handed over proceeds and cards to the responsible authorities. Last Saturday it was our turn, together with other volunteers, to play an hour of Bingo for those who had been conned into buying those cards. The following day, a Sunday, was the day of the “Cormatin open”. On both days however it happened several times that the prize fell on more than one card at the same time.
Contrary to what is normal in the Netherlands, the prize was not given to the first “Quinne” shouter, whilst the second winner would get the next official prize, etc. No; in one case there were actually three people who claimed a prize simultaneously. Lots were drawn between the three of them, and the winner got the proper prize. The other two won a consolation prize, in this case a bottle of wine respectively a can of pâté. And after this the Loto went on with a new round for the next proper prize. The rules in France are rather French; whether you shout Quinne, Bingo or just Oui does not really matter. As long as you shout something, everybody is happy. In the Netherlands a simple “Yes” disqualifies the “winner” in many bingo halls.
We did not have to play in the real Loto, because we were on bar duty. Hence we did not have to break our heads about French counting. Our basic mathematical skills, used in sums like “Quatre-vingt-dix-neuf = 4 times 20 + 10 + 9 = 99” were not required that day. Bar duty in France without having something to scoff is unheard of. Hence we were flogging off small containers of “Bugnes” as well as wine, beer, coffee, tea and soft drinks. Of course we did not have a clue what bugnes were, but all was revealed once we were on duty.
They resemble small donuts, although they are not necessarily circular with a hole in the middle, and are deep fried with icing sugar sprinkled over them. Although served cold, they sold like hot cakes. At the end of the day we had sold almost all soft drinks, most of the beer and all bugnes to those who needed a break in between straining Bingo sessions. This was not only because we were such excellent sales persons; the number of participants was exceptionally high compared to other years, and before the Loto started we actually had to put up more tables and chairs, although there was hardly any space left to put them. Apart from the usual crowd from Cormatin, there were people from other villages in the neighbourhood, and of course the mayor and his deputy, the honorable member of the Conseil Général of Saône-et-Loire Monsieur Jean-Paul C. and the star-reporter of the Journal de Saône-et-Loire Michèle E.-D. were all there and played Loto like their lives depended on it. Very soon this event will be head-line news in our local paper; however readers of this Blog definitely have a scoop on this one!

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Jazz à Trivy

2010-01-30T07:00:00.001+01:00

There is a very strong link between Jazz and France. Paris has acted as a magnet on a lot of great jazz musicians; after the war quite a few actually stayed in Paris for a shorter or longer period of time. Apart from this, France has produced some great names in jazz as well, to mention a few: Martial Solal, Daniel Humair, Pierre Michelot, Michel Legrand, Jean-Luc Ponty, Louis Sclavis and the unforgettable Quintette du Hot Club de France with Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelly. The tradition of the Hot Club is still alive in a great number of “manouche” combos.
One day we were browsing around in the Office de Tourisme in Cluny, when we got hold of a brochure called “Jazz à Trivy”. One of the first concerts in that series was a concert of Biréli Lagrène and his Gipsy Project. In Cluny the tickets had been sold out, but they told us that tickets were still available in a pharmacy in Charnay-lès-Mâcon. Charnay is not so far from here (approx. 30 km) so the next day we had tickets. Everybody who knows something about jazz also knows that Lagrène had developed from being a Django clone into a musician with a fabulous technique and a very own sound, even though he still has not forgotten his manouche background. The concert was excellent, and two seasons after the first concert, Lagrène performed again in Trivy, this time with Gipsy Project and singer Sara Lazarus. And that is what I find so amazing. Someone like Lagrène can easily fill a big concert hall, and has done so in the past. And still, this guy gives concerts in a piss pot little town, in the middle of nowhere, in a small Romanesque church which can be filled, with a lot of difficulty and after much pushing and shoving, with a maximum of 100 spectators. I am pretty sure there is a simple explanation. Possibly Lagrène was born or has lived around here, or has got some friends who live in this area and whom he does a favour; or of course a combination of both. Whatever the reason, Lagrène is a very welcome guest in Trivy. And Trivy has more to offer. The Swingle Singers of Ward Swingle were scheduled to perform not so long ago. Anyway, for jazz fans who are staying here in the summer: keep an eye out for “Jazz à Trivy”!

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Bingo! (part 1)

2010-01-16T07:00:00.007+01:00

Last year we read in the “Bulletin de Cormatin” that the “Amicale de Cormatin”, an association that organises amongst others the yearly brocante and randonnée, the outing for the aged and the Christmas party for the schoolchildren, was in need of volunteers. During the New Year’s reception at the Mairie we asked a local friend of ours whom we should approach, and she pointed Monsieur Alain G. out. We spoke to the guy and his wife, and yes, we could help; we had to be on a certain Saturday at 17h00 at Salle St. Roch to help with the Loto (= Bingo). We thought it to be a bit odd, because we were pretty sure that the Loto was in the afternoon. But maybe they needed us for the washing up, or for clearing chairs and tables.
The plot thickened when we realised that the Loto was held on a Sunday. But again, maybe we had to help setting up tables and chairs. Anyway, we arrived in time, together with a lot of other people. Every person got a handful of Loto cards, without payment, and the Loto began. Each time when a price fell, the “winner” stood up and handed in his card, which was carefully registered. And although three prices fell, nobody collected them; after the 3rd prize everyone packed up and went home. No need to say that we did not have the foggiest what had been going on that afternoon.
In the mean time we are a bit more integrated in the social life and events of Cormatin, and during the most recent meeting we finally saw the light. At the end of the meeting of the Amicale each participant received an envelope with 20 Loto cards à € 2.00 each. Every person present was asked to sell these cards to friends and relatives; the cards were numbered and had to be registered. The day before the “public” Loto, we are supposed to hand in the sold cards, the list with registered names of the absent players, and we had to play for those absent guys. The next day the proper, “public” Loto was held, and there one could also grab as many cards as one liked; however not without paying for them!
For part 2 and last click here.

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Never again! (part 3 and last)

2010-01-02T07:00:00.003+01:00

Summary : this is part 3 about cutting down trees in a forest.
After a long, hot summer we were supposed to pick up the wood in August, with our Citroën Picasso and trailer. Fortunately we do not live far away from ‘our’ piece of the forest, and we noticed in time that the path along the affouage plot was quickly overgrowing with shrubs. It appeared that we did not have much time to loose. We got our ass in gear pretty soon, and started to go into the forest, upload wood, and carry it to the field behind our house.
Unfortunately the path was sheltering a hidden tree trunk, which made a nice dent in the chassis of the car, under the right hand side door. Result : we could neither open nor close the door anymore. Fortunately we had an ex-car mechanic on the camp site, who was friendly enough to hammer the chassis in such a way that we could use the door again. The wood had become a lot dryer thanks to the hot weather and was quite a bit lighter than in winter.
Finally we had managed to collect approx. 18 stère, which means if one neglects labour cost approx. € 2 per stère. Considering that we normally pay € 50 per stère, this sounds like a bargain. However, when ordering from a wood merchant, one gets ready to use logs in lengths of 30 cm. The main question is, how much savings one really achieves. That is of course heavily dependant on the craftsmanship and competence of the affouageurs. I will make a rough estimate:
Affuage = € 35. Chopping trees and stacking - 32 hours with 4 people à € 10 (on the black!) = € 1280. Transport from the forest and stacking - 15 hours with 2 people à € 10 = € 300. Cutting to size and stacking - 10 hours with 2 people à € 10 = € 200. Forget petrol, chains and damage to the car. Total : € 1780.
Buying 18 stère à € 50 = € 900. Considering the accuracy of the hours spent, and the fact that nobody works for € 10 per hour anymore, the wood would be quite expensive even at an hourly rate of € 5. And who would dare to offer somebody an hourly rate of € 5? Given the fact that I still have pain in my right shoulder caused by shifting the wood, the question remains whether affouage, done by a bunch of good willing amateurs is worth it. My answer to this question is a wholeheartedly : Never again!

De website van La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Never again! (part 2)

2009-12-26T07:00:00.003+01:00

Summary : this is part 2 about cutting down trees in a forest.
We do not own a chainsaw, so we were relying on friends, who, in exchange for their labour and chainsaw, would get half of the wood. We paid the mairie, and helped with splitting and stacking. On top of that, because our friends were not exactly living next door, we would take care of transporting the wood from the forest to our field behind the house in September.
We would keep it, until they found time to collect their share. Well, cutting down trees sound easier than it really is. It is quite dangerous work, because trees tend to fall into an unexpected direction when the chainsaw is handled by someone who is not a professional. Further, thin trees are cut easily, and the pieces are easy to handle. Thicker trunks (mainly oak and beech), even when cut up in 50 cm length, are almost impossible to lift. The only way to move those pieces is to split them, with he help of steel wedges and a sledgehammer. I know now from experience, that even when one manages to split the wood, the 2 pieces are stuck to each other by the fibres, and that getting those two pieces physically separated from each other is damned hard work. Oak is worst, but beech is not much easier. When we started it was still quite pleasant weather, but soon it started freezing. The froze sap of the trees made the chain blunt in no time, which made cutting extra difficult. But the real challenge came at the end of the affouage. We had cut down and stacked everything but one last thick tree. There were still quite a few other ‘untouchables’ on our plot. And of course our last tree fell into the wrong direction.
Its crown landed in another tree, and there we were, stuck with a very dangerous situation. We had to choose between the evil and the deep blue see: either warn the forester and make fools of ourselves, or keep our mouths shut and illegally cut down the extra tree. We chose for the last option, and ended up with a bonus tree.
Finally, after 8 half days of very hard work, the four of us had managed to generate a few nice stacks of wood. The only remaining chore was getting the wood from the forest to our premises. But that seemed a doddle, by that time the wood having dried and hence being not so heavy anymore.
(To be continued in 1 week's time)

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Never again! (part 1)

2009-12-19T07:00:00.003+01:00

Another typical French phenomenon is ‘affouage’. In the wooded areas of France the communes have the right, in consultation with the forester, to allocate plots of wood which have to be cleared, and to offer the clearing to the villagers. The affouage however is strictly regulated. One can normally register around September in the local town hall.
The forester determines which part of the wood must be cleared, and will, depending on the number of villagers having registered, divide the area in the same number of plots. Every plot has a number, and on the day one goes to pay, the payer gets allocated his plot. This goes literally by taking a number from a hat. In Cormatin there were roughly 18 registered ‘lumberjacks’ and hence there were 18 plots, at € 35 each. The size of the plots was roughly 30 x 30 m (between pole no. 7 in the foreground and myself), hence approx. 1000 square meters. On the plot everything had to be cut with a diameter under 25 cm; the forester had marked a few thicker trees as well which had to go. Twigs and branches had either to be stacked neatly, or to be burnt. There was also a time frame. Cutting down the trees had to be finished before April; the wood could stay in the wood all summer to dry, but had to moved from the forest by September.
Of course we did not have the foggiest idea what this meant, but it sounded interesting. We live in an area, where water comes from a tap, where (3 phase) electricity is almost always working, and where we have telephone and even ADSL. However, excrements disappear into a septic tank, and gas comes in bottles from the local supermarket. For our heating we are completely relying on wood, because neither electric nor gas heating is really an option (price wise). We have 2 wood burning stoves in the kitchen and living areas, and two kerosene heaters for emergencies and for our studies. It sounds a bit dramatic, but the bottom line is that we can generate very comfortable temperatures in the winter. Anyway, € 35 for a piece of a forest sounded like a bargain. I did a rough estimate, based on (guessed) numbers of trees, diameters and heights, and came to the conclusion that anything between 10 and 20 stère sounded realistic. 1 Stère is as much wood as you can get into a volume of 1 x 1 x 1 meter; depending on the way you stack 1 stère equals (effectively) between 0.6 and 0.8 cubic metres. Knowing that we get through 6 or 8 stère in a winter à € 50 per stère, the decision was quickly taken. We went to the mairie, payed our € 35 and felt like landowners, who had just acquired a piece of forest.
(To be continued in 1 week's time)

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Courtesy of the Telegraph

2009-12-17T13:35:00.003+01:00

Johnny B. Goode

2009-12-14T17:19:00.004+01:00

I have always thought, that sensational journalism was a monopoly of the English tabloids, and that serious media, TV stations such as France 1 and BBC 1, were not sensation-prone. Well, I have changed my mind about France 1 (which is not a public, but a commercial station). On one of those days the climate conference in Copenhagen and accompanying demonstrations were on every front page of the newspapers, the (national) TV news of 20h00 on France 1 spent ten minutes on the topic of French rock star Johnny Halliday being admitted into an American hospital. No, the guy did not die; he was simply admitted into hospital. To demonstrate how disproportional the coverage was: the journal lasts 30 minutes, of which the last ten normally are reserved for culture and sports. Hence the remaining ten minutes were reserved for such trivia as the climate conference, an escaped murderer, problems with the magistrates, the debate about the national identity and the like. Artists in France, and certainly French artists, have an enormous status compared to artists in other countries. Still, I cannot get to grips with journalists waiting in front of a hospital, interviewing people like Charles Aznavour, Sylvie Vartan and other celebrities who went to the USA head over heals; obviously there is absolutely nothing else they can talk about. Having said that, Johnny is a national hero, manages to get his face day in day out in the tabloids, and recently did a very successful farewell tour along all the big podia in France. He certainly deserves a place somewhere in the news, but not necessarily everyday as the first topic. Only yesterday, when Berlusconi got kicked in the teeth Johnny was given a second slot of 10 minutes after 2 minutes for Berlusconi. Even our local daily, the magnificent Journal de Saône-et-Loire, has got Johnny’s portrait on the front page of each edition. The hype around the death of lady Di seems to be calm behaviour compared to the hype around Johnny. Whatever will happen if the man really dies one day? Three days of national mourning, entombing his body in the Panthéon in Paris, orchestrated by Sarko himself? Time will tell....

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Cats come and go...

2009-12-12T07:00:00.001+01:00

For those who have been following the story about our love-hate relationship with various cats, we have now another sequel. Some friends of ours have decided to return to he UK. Last year, during their holiday, we were asked to look after their cat Charbon, a big black one. The cat arrived in some sort of cage, was released, and disappeared straight away in the eaves of the toilet block of the campsite. We hardly saw the cat during his stay. He ate here, and the few times we saw him, he disappeared straight away in the wood or in the roof of the toilet block.
Our friends thought that it might be a good idea to bring Charbon again before they were leaving for England, but they had decided not to pick him up again. After all, Charbon “knew” us. Anyway, the friends arrived, the cage was put in the garden, to let Fifi get used to her new mate, and we had lunch together. After lunch we all were going back into the garden, to release the cat. Sue, who wanted Charbon to feel welcome, went back into the house to get some treats for Charbon. But before she returned, our friend had opened the cage. The only thing Sue could see was a tiny bit of a black tail, disappearing through the hedge into the meadow, heading for the forest.
And that was the last we saw of him. It all happened so fast, that I could not even take a picture of Charbon; hence a picture of Fifi, the “winner” in this duel.
Of course there is a possibility that Charbon will become a wild cat, but there are also cat theoreticians who seem to suggest that cats sometimes, after months of wandering around, return to their old home. Anyway, we still keep our eyes and ears wide open, because it would be a real pity if Charbon would become a victim of a fox or a wild boar....

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Charity (2)

2009-12-07T13:00:00.002+01:00

The whole of Saturday 5 December was dedicated to the Téléthon, in the papers, on TV and in the streets of every self-respecting village and town in France. We have finally found out what the Téléthon is all about; it is a yearly nationwide fundraising event for a research institute for myopathy. Something like this on a yearly basis is unknown in the Netherlands, but maybe it is comparable with Red Nose Day in the UK. Each year another (mostly) French celebrity is godfather of the Téléthon, such as Alain Delon, Mireille Matthieu, Julien Clerc and this year the famous actor Daniel Auteuil (Jean de Florette / Manon des Sources). We also found out why this event is so important in Cormatin; one of the village children is suffering from myopathy, and with only 500 inhabitants almost everybody knows kid and parents personally.
We did not have time (and had no intention!) to sit and watch TV all day. After we had helped putting up the tents in front of the church in Cormatin, carried and put up long wooden tables, emptied car boots and carried boxes from car to tent, the Téléthon in Cormatin slowly got going after 10 o’clock. One tent was hosting second hand books, DVD’s and videos, another stall was selling mulled wine, snacks, wafers, ready made boxes with petit salé aux lentils (a typical winter dish from the North of France), in another women were making and selling Christmas decorations, and in yet another one they were selling roses. Throughout the day some children were playing guitar and accordeon, a local bicycle club had organised a tour around all Téléthons in the vicinity, buying something in every village, like a sandwich, some wafers, a glass of mulled wine....
Slowly it started to dawn why we had been making paper roses the week before. On the steps in front of the war memorial a huge board was mounted, with in it cut out the Téléthon logo. For each sold real rose (à € 1 a piece) a paper rose was stuck in the openings of the wooden board, thus producing a multicoloured Téléthon logo by the end of the day! Half the population was in the mean time trying to make the event a success, and the other half was supposed to hang around, buy roses or a second hand book, or spend money in any other way, thus enabling the organiser Monsieur P. to phone the central fund raising authorities to proudly announce that Cormatin had managed to clock up another € 4000 (roughly the average over the past years). This was not the first time that I had noticed that some Cormatinoises are very good in selling package deals. After we had helped putting up the tents we went off to buy the Saturday edition of Le Monde at the local Tabac. However, Mme B. did not let us leave with just Le Monde; we were more or less forced to buy two boxes of petit salé aux lentils. She was very persuasive, with arguments as “I have bought them myself as well”, it makes an excellent and easy luch, and it is for a good cause. Finally we did not leave the shop before we had dished out € 11 in return for two slips of paper entitling us to two boxes. We walked back to the stand with the snacks and in exchange for our pieces of paper we obtained the food, consisting of a layer of lentils garnished with various pieces of meat, such as streaky bacon, sausage and pork. How much the final result for Cormatin is going to be is still unknown; however, Mme B. did not exaggerate about the food; we absolutely do not mind to support next year’s Téléthon exactly the same way!

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Charity (1)

2009-12-01T07:00:00.004+01:00

Because we are finally involved in Cormatin’s seething social life, we were asked to come and help out with “folding roses” for the yearly Téléthon. We still do not exactly know what this is, apart from a big national fund-raising event. Anyway, we were asked, and we said yes. We were one of the first to arrive, and once the lady with the key to the village hall arrived, we entered and started putting chairs around the table. Soon the crowd came in, one by one. For us it is every time a surprise who the volunteers are going to be; there seems to be a reservoir of about 50 people in Cormatin, who take turns in helping out
However, there is also a small hard core who is always there. This time the majority of volunteers were women.
Cardboard boxes were carried in, which were filled with pieces of crêpe paper in various colours, pliers, and rolls of thin metal wire, normally used in gardening. Once everything was distributed across the tables, the game could begin.
One takes the corner of an oblong piece of crêpe paper in one hand, and folds the bottom long side of the free hanging bit into an harmonica shape with the other hand, whilst pushing it in the first hand. This hand also slowly revolves the folded bit, thus creating something which, with a lot of fantasy, resembles a flower. The bottom bit of the flower is then secured with a piece of wire, whereby the extra length of the wire resembles a stem. And voilà, there is one of the 360 roses ready for.... yes, ready for what? We still have no idea. It involves selling real roses, and giving the paper ones away, or the other way around, or there might still be another possibility. Anyway, all shall be revealed on the day of the Téléthon.
To be continued...

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

The times they are a-changin’...

2009-11-28T07:00:00.005+01:00

I have always liked the way the official holidays are celebrated here. In earlier Blogs I have mentioned several times what the most common procedure is; whether the wreath is available or not, whether the official speech, dictated by “Paris”, is read or not, to which of the two monuments we have to go this time, and the real highlight of every occasion, namely the opening of the boot of Monsieur P.’s car from which, through a rickety tape deck a crackling, whining Marseillaise will be played. Last Armistice day (11 November) it was yet again one of those occasions.
Traditionally the wreath laying takes place in Cormatin only. We were stunned, when we noticed that Monsieur P. had indulged in buying a brand new neat and tidy amplifier, on batteries, which hosted a cassette player and a microphone. The mayor could now use a microphone to address his audience, and the Marseillaise was this time actually recognisable as such. At the end the mayor invited everyone for a vin d’honneur, but that was not what Monsieur P. had in mind. He is the last survivor of Buchenwald in Cormatin, but that is not the only reason why Monsieur P. has authority in the commune. A week earlier there had been a celebration at the monument for the deportees, to commemorate the fact that the monument had been erected 60 years ago. Obviously Monsieur P. was not impressed with the turn-out that particular day, so he strongly suggested that the whole crowd (which was exceptionally big this day) should go to Bois Dernier as well, even though there was no wreath. A week before the monument had been enhanced with a new inscription and a flagpole from which the French flag was flying proudly. The inscription reads “Nous sommes libres, notre drapeau flotte à nouveau, ils ont fait don de leur vie.” ; which means something like “We are free, our flag flies anew, they gave their lives”. After a minute of silence the Marseillaise sounded like it had never sounded here before. Still, whenever I pass by one of the monuments, I think with a bit of nostalgia of how it sounded in the good old days.....

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Christmas is looming

2009-11-22T11:09:00.005+01:00

The year is slowly coming to an end, and this usually culminates in an overabundance of Christmas decorations in Chazelle and other hamlets or villages around us. But our hamlet has something special other hamlets do not have: Chazelle has on of the world’s greatest decaroteurs of all time. And certainly Monsieur N. gets his act together towards Christmas.
In the summertime his garden is inhabited by an army of garden gnomes, standing in front of their own wooden working model of a Dutch windmill, or leaning against a wooden model of a romanesque church. If you want to turn your garden into something like the one I have just described, Monsieur N. is definitely your man.
This year however, his winter urge started earlier than usual. At the end of last month, out of the blue, something appeared on the corner of the only crossroads Chazelle boasts. Seated on a fire hydrant there was a man carved out of pumpkins. This Halloween decoration was however aptly destroyed by, one assumes, a stray cat or dog. But nothing can stop Monsieur N., once Christmas is looming. Last week, quite unexpectedly, a romanesque church appeared in front of his house on a wooden table.
The space in front of the church doors was populated by figures from a nativity scene; or should I say from at least a dozen nativity scenes? Not long after that another table appeared in front of one of his garage doors, this time carrying a huge wooden stable, inhabited by what appeared to be the remainder of his grand total of nativity scenes. But that is not all. The walls of his house are now decorated with numerous tasteful light bulbs, light snakes, roof and chimney climbing Father Christmasses, etc. In a word: his house breathes Christmas from all its pores.
But the best still has to come. Each year appears, next to the aforementioned fire hydrant, a Christmas tree and something that either resembles a coffin, or a rocket monsieur N. has built for his great-grand children. This monstrosity of course has lights, but it also contains another Father Christmas, half hanging against the wall of his coffin, ready to be launched into outer space.
When one has something like this next door, who would want to travel to London for the pathetic decorations in Oxford Street?

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

A delayed funeral

2009-11-14T07:00:00.003+01:00

Recently, during a lunch of the Amicale de Cormatin, our mayor was in a very talkative mood. It all started off with talking about the main dish. That consisted of a stew of game, which he had shot himself during one of his hunting expeditions in the woods around Mont Saint-Romain. The wine flowed abundantly, and the stories got taller. At some stage there was a story about the bell-ringer of Chazelle. One day he rang the bell with such vigour, that the rope disattached itself from the bell, landed on the head of the ringer and almost knocked the guy off his feet. Since that time no bell has ever been rung, because there is no access to the bell from within, and obviously nobody has felt the urge to fix it from the outside. From there the subject changed to funerals. Our mayor had a relative in Paris, who died there. But the funeral was going to take place in Chazelle, where the family grave is, and everything had been arranged with the funeral director in Paris. The coffin would leave Paris at 9h00, and would arrive in Chazelle well in time for the funeral at 15h00. Everything was set for the event; the family had gathered in the church, the priest was there… The only thing that was not there, was the coffin. One and a half hour later the priest was getting cheesed off, and wanted to call off the whole thing. In the end he decided to do a symbolic funeral of a portrait of the deceased, and after that everybody moved off. In the mean time Paris had been phoned a number of times, and finally Head Quarters came back with the solution of this mystery. It appeared, that the driver had entered Chazelles into his GPS receiver. Not only are there at least 4 places with the name Chazelle in France; there are even more villages or hamlets with the name Chazelles. The driver had not just miss-spelled the place name, but also randomly picked the first one that came up in his tomtom. He emerged somewhere in Puy-de-Dôme, and after finding out his mistake, reached the proper Chazelle at about 21h00. The funeral turned out to be a very lonely affair in the end…. Moral of the story: Never trust your tomtom blindly!

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Virtual reality

2009-10-31T19:00:00.001+01:00

One of the highlights of a visit to the abbey of Cluny is the 3D film shown as part of the visit. But (I think as part of the Cluny 2010 celebrations) the Cluny abbey is introducing more things to show what the abbey looked like before the French revolution. One of the latest things introduced recently are screens which display “virtual reality”.
The screens are a sort of LCD screens, approx. 50 cm wide and 1 m tall, standing on a pole. The screens can be turned by the spectators. What one sees on the screen is what one would haven seen in the days the abbey was still there. The view changes when the screen is turned. in French these screens are called “bornes”, which meens something like milestones. The first one was installed in the remaining part of the transept. This one can be turned 360 degrees, and shows the views inside the church from the transept.
In the past the abbey was protected by walls, gates and towers. one of these towers is the Tour des Fromages, whis is located on Cluny’s main street. recently a second borne has been installed in the attic of this tower. It follows the same concept. the moment the screen is turned slightly, the view changes. The interesting feature is, that when one comes close enough to the screen to see the week market at the foot of the tower, the same market, and the people walking around it, are shown on the screen. Only the background of the market has changed to the abbey in pre-revolutionary days.
To me this is a stunning piece of modern virtual reality technique, and it certainly adds something to a visit of the abbey and of the tower (which requires a separate ticket). Apart from this Virtual Reality screen is the tower worth a visit in its own right. The access to the tower is inside the Office the Tourisme, and the wooden stairs are extremely steep. Once having climbed the stairs, one finds an attic with big holes in the walls (no windows) which allow stunning views of Cluny and surroundings. And one can take pictures of the lovely panoramas without being hindered by the glare of glass.

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Pidgin German

2009-10-17T07:00:00.002+02:00

Ever tried to translate some English prose into a language one hardly masters? Based on one’s education (in my case 1 year + 2 years German in various schools) and experience (none) this is not necessarily a doddle. When I was young, having a C or D for German was still seen as a belated act of resistance, hence why bother working hard to boost your knowledge of the German language?
Anyway, recently I wanted to post something in German on the Internet. A friend of mine, an ex-teacher (in German) agreed to take out the blatant errors, on the condition that this was going to be a one-off. This was my first encounter with German since the sixties. Was it sheer arrogance that made me revive the idea to have our website in English, Dutch, French and …. German?
I will not bore my readers with a detailed run down on my struggle with declinations, three genders, conjugations, four grammatical cases, uppercase for nouns, etc. What I would like to make clear is that some obsolete dictionaries and an ancient grammar book are not really sufficient for a smooth, quick and adequate translation, no matter how one simplifies the original text. Luckily there is a vast array of tools available on the Internet, and cross referencing with Wikipedia in Dutch, English, French and German, using Google to search for a word one assumes exists, and using the German Wiktionary helps tremendously. Still, it is a heavy task to produce something that does not automatically results in a declaration of war, as soon as a German reads the final product.
After three days of hard and concentrated work we now have a German website. Someone might actually remark that there are free translation programs available, such as Babelfish. To show the “quality” of those programs, I will translate the previous sentence from English to German and back to English again, using Babelfish.
1. Someone might actually remark that there are free translation programs available, such as Babelfish.
2. Jemand konnte, dass es die vorhandenen Programme der freien Übersetzung gibt, wie Babelfish wirklich erwähnen.
3. Someone could that there are the existing programs of the free translation, how Babelfish really mention.
Of course this a fictitious, and not completely fair test; however it certainly shows that free translators do not produce much more than pidgin German. I am convinced, that my translation is full of errors. However, read out aloud, with the right Prussian accent, it certainly sounds like German!
Mit freundlichen Grüßen, Käse aus Holland.

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

The local Chinese

2009-10-03T08:05:00.003+02:00

One of the returning questions from friends and relatives is “What do you really miss in France?”. Most are thinking along the lines of Dutch delicacies like raw herring, but one of the things I missed most is the ordinary Chinese-Indonesian restaurant, which you will be able to find even in a small Dutch village. Around here there are some Chinese restaurants, but most of them are originally Vietnamese, which nowadays have taken on board Chinese and Thai food. We have tried a few, in Mâcon and Chalon, but the quality of the food was, to say it kindly, not impressive. When we were renovating the house, we went regularly to Crèches-sur-Saône, because that was where the nearest building merchant was. Almost all shops close between 12 and 2 o’clock, and of course one day we forgot, and were there just past 12. However, we had seen a sign nearby, saying “La Route de Chine, buffet à volonté”, and we decided to have lunch there in stead of driving half an hour back and return around 2 o’clock. That turned out to be a very lucky gamble indeed. The buffet à volonté (eat as much as you like) offered a very good choice of proper Chinese food; the quality was good and the price was very reasonable (€ 11.00 without drinks). After that event we tried to plan our trips to the building merchant in such away, that we could have lunch in Crèches as well. But all good things come to an end, such as the renovation and hence our visits to Crèches. However, we had to go to Mâcon regularly, because Mâcon is the seat of many offices important to us: the prefecture, the health insurance, the tax office, etc. On one of our trips we noticed another sign, saying “Palais d’Asie, buffet à volonté”; thinking of our good experiences with “La Route de Chine” we decided to give this one a try as well. That was definitely the end of our visits to Crèches. The choice in Mâcon was not only bigger, but the quality of the food was even better, and the price (in those days) was € 10.00 for a lunch. Since then the prices have been raised first to € 11.00, and recently lowered to € 10.50 (prices in the evening and week-end tend to be slightly higher). To give an impression of the assortment: there are 6 warm starters, 2 kinds of suhi, 2 kinds of dim sum, 4 sauces and various types of salad available. There are 8 hot meat, fish or shell fish dishes, which can be eaten with Cantonese rice, white rice, fried noodles, vegetables and even French fries. The desserts are various fruit salads, 5 kinds of ice cream and cake. In a word, there is something for everybody. Nowadays we plan our visits strategically around lunch time. And as far as the original question is concerned; the Chinese has been scrapped off the list, and is replaced by something that is really not available in France : an ordinary Dutch snackbar!

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

The end of an era

2009-09-24T10:46:00.006+02:00

In my last Blog I was rather lyrical about the “old-fashioned” cattle market in Saint-Christophe. Unfortunately I was not aware of the changes that had taken place in the meantime. There was an article in the latest bimonthly magazine of the Chamber of Commerce about the market in Saint-Christophe. The article very proudly announced the introduction in June this year of a “marché au cadran”, which is a market by means of a clock. Because we had not been there for a while, we decided to see how dramatic these changes were.

The moment we arrived we saw what had happened. The traditional market still exists, but at a much smaller scale. Next to the old covered market hall a new building had appeared, a modern circular building. Inside the building was a small ring, with around it a sort of amphitheatre. One man brought a cow or cows in from the outside, and made them make a little round in the arena. In the mean time all the particulars, such as vaccinations, weight, lot number, etc. were displayed on a big screen. The farmers were bidding electronically, this time in Euros, although the price in Francs was still displayed as well, and after the highest bid the cow was lead outside the arena, to make place for the next one. It is needless to say that the sterile environment and the efficiency has advantages for farmers as well as cows. However, it is, at least for the tourist lacking the charm of the noise, the smell and of manoeuvring around heaps of cow dung, in order to see what is going on. For those who want to see an old fashioned market in its full glory, the motto is : do not wait too long. It looks like that within a year the old market will completely be replaced by the bidding via a clock. Something similar already has happened to the other big cattle market in Burgundy, the one in Moulins-Engilbert (Nièvre).
The blow was finally softened a bit by an excellent lunch at La Tour d’Auvergne. For € 13.30 we got steak frites, a cheese platter and a mousse au chocolat. Ever been to a restaurant, where, because one of the steaks was a bit on the small side (according to the waitress, they looked the same to us!) the cook had thrown in an extra, third steak? It happened to us that day!

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Cattle market

2009-09-20T10:33:00.007+02:00

When I look out over the meadows from my windows, I see some beautiful white Charollais cows (bred for meat, with AOC, and not for milk) wondering through the field. That is less strange than it seems; although we do not live in the Charollais region (Charolles is approx. 60 km from here) these sort of cows can be found throughout Saône-et-Loire. In the département there are two markets where this cattle is sold. The most important, biggest and oldest is the one in Saint-Christophe-en-Brionnais, a village even further from here than Charolles.
The market possibly dates back to the X-th century; in 1488 Charles VIII declared the market to be “perpetual”, and ever since there have been cattle markets here. We arrived at about 12h30, and the streets were completely deserted. All we saw were a few market stalls along the main street selling rubber boots. A bit disappointed we walked into a restaurant, it being lunch time. Here it was the same thing; a tiny room, with a few empty tables. We waited a few minutes, until a waitress walked in. We told her that we would like to have lunch, and the moment that magic word was spoken we were whisked away to the back of the restaurant. All of a sudden it became clear. The actual restaurant on a Wednesday (market day) was a great big hall, with endlessly long tables and benches. The hall was completely filled up with noisy farmers, obviously already having started negotiations about cattle prices at the lunch tables. The waitress found us a place, and we joined a bunch of shouting farmers at their table. The restaurant was run like a factory; very efficient. There were lots of waitresses, whizzing around the tables; unlike some busy French lunchtime restaurants around here, there was plenty of choice (although not à la carte), and not just one set menu. Within half an hour one had finished his meal, and made place for yet another farmer. Around one o’clock the hall emptied, but for a handful of tourists, and obviously that was the time the market started. The market is held in an immensely big hall, where the farmers are negotiating the prices by writing offer and demand on little bloc notes. It appears, that prices are still in Francs, although by now I do not think they are still using old Francs.
Farmers here are, as they were in the Netherlands, easily recognisable. French farmers however are generally scrawny, wear blue or dark-blue dust-coats and green or brown rubber boots, unlike Dutch farmers; the common denominator is the walking stick they carry around to hit the cows when necessary. Even though the farmers are different, the whole atmosphere on the market, with its smell of cattle and dung, the shouting and the negotiating, brings back memories from when I was a child, when I wondered across the weekly cattle market in Delft, the place where I was born. Every so often we still go back to Saint-Christophe, to taste the atmosphere, but also for lunch. Those lunches are excellent; of course no restaurateur would dare to come up with a lousy piece of meat when you serve farmers who breed what they are eating….. Saint-Christophe has two restaurants, but we find that the one we tried during our first visit, La Tour d’Auvergne, has, although the same sort and quality of food as the other, the better atmosphere of the two.
Click here for part 2.

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Cluny 2010 - Ouvrez les portes!

2009-09-15T09:39:00.002+02:00

My better half has written a very interesting Blog about Cluny and its history, in view of the festivities around 1100 years Cluny Abbey. In stead of copying it in, it seems more logical to give the link to the Blog.
Click here to read Sue’s blog.
The Blog gives a very good written impression of how big and influential the monastic order of Cluny has been. Unfortunately there is not much left of the third church built there, but when visiting the remains of the church one can admire a 3D film, produced by the ENSAM, which shows what the Cluny church must have looked like in its high-days.
In the eighties I have seen a similar project from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT - Cambridge MA); however, if I remember correctly, that was not a 3D film, but an ordinary 2D film. Although it also showed what Cluny must have been like, the emphasis in that film was much more on what the MIT could do, than on what the monks around 1000 AD could do.
The film from the ENSAM is short (10 minutes) and in French, but is far superior compared to the 30 minute film from MIT.
Apart from this film there are a great number of models of the abbey around; the abbey museum hosts a very nice collection of various models, showing the exterior as well as the interior of the church.
The only part of the church that is still in tact is part of the transept; on the picture it is the right hand side part with the small tower with the blue roof and the slightly bigger tower next to it.
Click here for a photo album of “Ouvrez les Portes!”

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Frog legs

2009-09-14T12:46:00.003+02:00

As a child I was told that there were actually people who eat frog legs. In English this does not sound so horrifying, but the Dutch call them frog bottoms, and who would want to eat some creature’s bottom? Of course, in those days I was not aware that steak is just a nicer word for cow bottom! When I lived in Singapore, one of the (Chinese) consultants I worked with, thought it was big fun to take westerners to restaurants where they served 100-year eggs, blood cubes, snake and turtle soup, iguana and frog legs. Even though I never got the hang of a couple of these things, frog legs certainly became one of my favourites. Some time ago we wanted to try out Le Rochefort, a restaurant in Cluny. It was packed each lunch time and the car park was full of local cars; normally a very good sign for a restaurant around here.
Unfortunately I had had escargots (snails Burgundian style) and frog legs a couple of days before in a different restaurant. Both dishes were served in a rather fluid sauce, completely covered in parsley (quite a common way to serve this sort of food around here). The plate with frog legs resembled a bit too much a stagnant pond covered in duck-weed with frogs floating in it (the frog legs are still attached to each other when served). Anyway, I ordered something else in Le Rochefort that day. However I saw several plates with frog legs being served around us, and they looked a lot more appetising than the ones I had had before.
A couple of days ago we decided to give it another go. And that turned out to be an excellent choice. The prices give here are the 2009 prices. One portion of frog legs costs € 21.00; a set meal (I chose Terrine foie de volaille = chicken livers, frog legs and desert) costs € 25.00.
Luckily I had shared the excellent starter with my partner, because the main course was so big and labour intensive, that I actually had eaten more than enough after an hour picking meat off minuscule bones. The desert went also to my partner, who was quite happy with the salad she had ordered and my leftovers. The frog legs were fried or deep fried, and were seasoned with parsley. Yesterday, when we were having a picnic at long tables with the inhabitants of Cormatin in the streets of Cluny to celebrate the opening ceremony of Cluny 2010, the conversation veered at some point towards local delicacies. After having been informed on how to catch snails, how to feed them flour for two days and then how to dissect and prepare them, the word frog legs fell. The consensus appeared to be that the best frog legs in the area are being served in, indeed, restaurant Le Rochefort in Cluny. A piece of advise of those who happen to stay around here and are adventurous with food : do not forget to have a meal there, and order a portion of frog legs. It is well worth the money, and not only is it famous in this part of the woods, but also delicious; take my word for it!

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Postman Pat

2009-09-09T10:31:00.002+02:00

Delivering post can be quite tricky in a country like France. Apart from big towns and cities, smaller towns, and certainly villages and hamlets in the Campagne do not have street names, let alone house numbers. A village like Cormatin was given street names about two years ago; however house numbers still do not exist.

Whether one has the courtesy to inform friends and relations that the address “Bourg 71460 Cormatin” can be replaced by e.g. "Rue de la Sablière, 71460 Cormatin” is entirely up to this person. Most of the 500 inhabitants in Cormatin still live, as far as the addresses on their letters are concerned in the “Bourg” (bourg = village, town). The only people with a proper address are the ones who live in house with a name, such as “La Filatiere, 71460 Cormatin”. And although Cormatin now has street names, the online telephone directory still gives all inhabitants the same address “Bourg”. When one clicks on the “town map” option, all Cormatinois live in the same house, indicated with a star somewhere in the middle of the high street.
Hamlets like Chazelle do not even have street names. Hence everybody lives in “Chazelle, 71460 Cormatin”, again with the exception of those living in a house with a name, e.g “La Tuilerie de Chazelle”.
The postal code is not much use either; 71460 is an area with a radius of approx. 15 km, with 34 communes. And each commune has a handful of hamlets as well.
This system, or lack there of, has serious consequences for the Postal service. The lady who drives around like a lunatic in her little yellow car delivering mail (we estimate that she delivers in approx. 30 villages and hamlets) must know everybody by name! Hence it is obligatory to have your name displayed on your letter box.
As a consequence, whenever our Post lady is going on holiday, she always drives around with her temporary replacement sitting next to her for at least a week, in order for him or her to learn names and addresses by heart.
Is not it amazing, that (as far as we know) hardly any letters get lost? The only problem we have encountered in the beginning was how the French look at, in their eyes, strange names. All my official mail is addressed to “Cornelis van Halderen”, and in a nearby village of Ameugny another Durtchman lives with the name “Cornelis van X”. One day the post lady had to deliver a letter to this “Cornelis van X”, stopped reading at “Cornelis van”, and since we were first on her route, decided that there was only one “Cornelis van” in 71460. We solved this the next day, by handing over the letter to her, but whether this had been a one off or not, of course we do not know…..

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Treasure hunt (part 2)

2009-09-05T09:53:00.002+02:00

Click hear to read part 1 of this story.

Since we live here we have been looking out for other tile making factories in the vicinity, if only to get a bit more information on how these factories worked in the past. We thought we more or less found them all, until two of our gîte guests came back from a cycle ride, and told us enthousiastically “We have found another tuilerie nearby!”. What else could we do but get our bikes out, and have a look for ourselves? Indeed, we found this tuilerie in Saint-Forgeuil and had a chat with the owner. The man, a Belgian, knew of a few other tuileries around here. We knew then, in 2008 of the existence of seven factories (including his and ours), and he knew the location of three more. One of them, according to the man, was “easy to find, and well visible from the road between Joncy and Chevagny-sur-Guye”. The other two were indeed easy to find, but no matter how often we drove the distance between Joncy and Germagny, we did not find that one. In the end we decided that the man had made a mistake.
However, a few months ago we had a meeting with some people about a randonnée which would stop at our tuilerie for a vin d’amitié. And during this meeting the guide of the randonnée, who lives near Joncy, mentioned that particular tuilerie. We finally got a detailed IGN walking map out of the area, something we should have done long before, and found the tuilerie along that road. And again we got into the car, and drove off to investigate the road between Joncy and Chevagny-sur-Guye. We stopped at the given location, parked the car on the westside of the road, and crossed the road to the eastside, the side where on the map it said “tuilerie”. There certainly was a building, but at this time we are quite good at spotting tuileries or remains there of.
The building we were looking at had no resemblance to a tuilerie what so ever. we studied the map again, and came to the conclusion that maybe there had been a tuilerie once, but that there was no trace of it to be found any more. We crossed the road again to get into the car, when all of a sudden I saw a trace of a roof through the abundant foliage of some trees. We had parked on the edge of a small field, overgrown with stinging nettles and a cluster of trees. Once I had waded through the field, I saw, in between the trees, the remains of a drying shed (séchoir) and a kiln (four)! We finally had found our last tuilerie, we thought. However, the same gîte guests who pointed out the tuilerie of Saint-Forgeuil, had bought a book about the Voies Vertes in Burgundy. And this book mentioned a working tuilerie in Corbigny (in Nièvre, a bordering department). This was not exactly next door, but when it comes to tuileries, there is nothing to stop us. We visited the place, got an excellent guided tour by one of the workers, and learned a lot of things we did not know before (thanks to Paul and Jany).By then we thought we really had found everything there was to know. However, when I was surfing on the net this morning, in search of some updated tourist information, I came across an advert for a gîte in Lancharre (a hamlet near Chapaize) on the website of Chapaize. In the mean time we have visited the place, got a warm welcome and a tour from the owners, and we are now waiting for a counter visit. And again, we are finally complete ….. until another tuilerie emerges!

Click here to see the latest update of photographs of tuileries in Burgundy

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Philistine

2009-09-02T08:18:00.002+02:00

Sometimes, wondering through a museum, an exhibition or just through the streets one stumbles on a piece of art. Sometimes it is clear what it is, a bust or statue of someone, or a sculpture of playing children. Other times it is not so clear what it depicts, and that goes for abstract art as well as for figurative art. And when you find out the name or title, it often obscures matters in stead of giving you an “Aha-Erlebnis”.
A good example is the sculpture by the famous Dutch sculptor Wessel Couzijn, which brightens up the Unilever Building on one of Rotterdam’s busy streets, the Weena. I like this piece of art, although it does not look like anything. My partner, who worked for Unilever for many years called it the “Scrap metal heap”, which certainly describes it well, and shows her appreciation for it.
But does the “meaning” of the sculpture becomes clearer when one knows the real title? I doubt it very much. The sculpture is entitled “Embodied unity”. I can imagine the “Aha-Erlebnis” displayed on the faces of my readers…
Despite this sort of abracadabra I really do like the sculpture.
I had a similar experience recently, when we visited the studio of Monique Dégluaire, a sculptress (who makes ceramic sculptures) living in the nearby hamlet of Bessuge. the woman makes beautiful stuff, and one day we decided to pay her a visit. Click here to join us.
One of her works stood in the garden, not in the studio. I actually should say sat in the garden , because it was a statue of a seated woman with a ball on her head. The woman had a hairdress like Cleopatra in “Asterix and Cleopatra” (one’s got to know his classics!). People with a bit more artistic feeling should stop reading here, because the following shows my ignorance when it comes to the deeper feelings of art and artists. I am a Philistine deep in my heart, and I feel quite happy about it. Anyway, I asked the sculptor casually what the name was of this Egyptian beauty, and I got my answer. She was called “La consolation des tempêtes”, loosely translated as the “Consolation or consoler of the tempests”. February this year we had a tempest raging across France, bringing down two trees in our garden, and breaking the overhead electricity cable. I wonder who needs consolation, the storm or the victims of the storm? Or is it the idea that the tempest consoles its own victims? Ask those who lost relatives and goods in the February storm that ravaged the western parts of the Netherlands in 1953. I still clearly remember that night in 1953, when the whole family stayed up until the small hours, listening to the radio, fearing that a nearby dike would break and inundate Delft and surroundings, while the “consoling” noise of the tempest was howling around the house…
Of course this has got noting to do with the beauty of the said work of art. Despite its name it is something I would not mind having in the garden.
The moral of this story: do not ask for the name of a piece of art when you like it; sometimes it is better not to know at all!

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

The Russians are coming!

2009-08-25T16:47:00.004+02:00

Last week we had encounters with a few people who once, not so long ago, were seen as sworn enemies of the “free” Western world.
The first encounter was during a rather bizarre bicycle accident. We decided to travel by car to Bonnay, in order to visit a guy who makes beautiful wooden miniatures. In stead of taking the main road, we decided to drive along a narrow country road. We had just crossed the Voie Verte at Cormatin, when we saw a female cyclist coming towards us, cycling in the middle of the road. The moment she saw us, something very strange happened. We had already stopped, when we saw her body moving forward over the handle bars, while at the same time the back wheel moved up in the air, and the bicycle landed on top of the woman. Once we got out of the car, it seemed that the woman was laying in a pool of blood. Fortunately things looked graver than they were.
We helped her up, untangled the bicycle and found out that she was a young Russian woman, staying in Taizé. She was sent out by a friend on the (borrowed) bike to get some shopping from Cormatin. Then it became more or less clear what had happened. The woman was carrying a very heavy rucksack, not on her back but in a little basket hanging in front of the handle bars. The basket further contained some bags of fruit and a bottle of wine.
Another bottle of wine she held in her hand whilst cycling. Obviously she was not a very experienced cyclist. When she saw us coming towards her, she panicked, and braked with her free hand. The free hand operated the front brake. This combined with the centre of gravity of her luggage and shopping, made the bicycle topple over, and she went with it. The blood she was bathing in appeared to be the content of two bottles of wine. Once we got her up and standing, she seemed alright, although very shaken. We decided to take her to Cormatin by car, to see at least a pharmacist, and if necessary a doctor. So Sue drove off with our new Russian friend, and I followed them on her bike. At the pharmacy they checked and cleaned her wounds (mainly grazes, also under her cloths) and, although the pharmacist actually wanted her to see a doctor, the woman insisted on leaving for Taizé. So we put the bicycle, luggage and shopping in the boot of the car, and brought her back to Taizé. Some people might think something higher was involved in this accident: the intake of alcohol is frowned upon in Taizé, and those staying their get only very few vouchers which they can spend on alcohol in the Taizé-run café……
Our second encounter with Russians took place the same week. The choir “Les Voix de la Nèva” from Saint Petersburg was performing in the Saint-Philibert abbey church of Tournus.
Those concerts are usually of high standard and hence very popular, reason why we had bought tickets well in advance. The choir was indeed excellent. The five men and five women performed a beautiful concert. Their voices sounded beautiful, not in the least because the acoustics of the abbey church is superb. Before the break they sang a program of Russian-Orthodox church music, and after the break they sang a collection of profane songs. One of the high lights of the last bit of the program was a stunning performance of “Vecherniy zvon”. The English title is “Evening bells”, and interestingly enough, the lyrics are a translation of Thomas Moore’s poem “Those evening bells” (Irish melodies, 1808). For those who want to hear the melody click here.
This week had a very high nostalgia content. Not only brought it back sweet memories of a very popular Russian language TV course which I once followed (only sweet memories came back, and hardly any Russian words!), but the song brought back memories of a very popular radio program from my youth. Each broadcast was dedicated to a specific firm, company or factory, of which the employees could request certain tunes to be played. And one of the very popular tunes was : indeed, “Vecherniy zvon”, performed by a very popular Dutch choir!

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Les Rendez-vous de Cormatin

2009-08-25T09:50:00.004+02:00

One of Cormatin’s big theatrical events, Les Rendez-vous de Cormatin, has come to an end. This year there were quite a few French classics on the program, such as plays from de Musset and Appolinaire. We always like to see at least one of the plays, but this year there was noting to our liking. In previous years we saw amongst others Chekov’s “The Cherry Orchard” and Brecht’s “The Three Penny Opera” (in French entitled funnily enough “L’Opéra de quat’sous”!).
We thought that we should give the Festival a miss this year, until we discovered at least one interesting concert (the theatre group also hosts some musicians or cooperates with musicians from around here). The concert was called “Entre Paroles et Musique” with compositions by Gabriel Fauré. We should have figured out from the title that this was not only a musical evening, but we did not. It appeared to be an evening describing the life of Fauré, recited by two actors of the theatre group, alternated with Fauré’s music. The text also contained poems by contemporaries of Fauré. The music was played by Guy Touvron - trumpet and Chantal Rou - piano. The actors were from the “Studio Asnières”, a theatre group based near Paris which comes to Cormatin every year to “do” the festival.
Click here for the website of Studio Asnières.
Guy Touvron is a well-known French trumpet player, who is also the founder of the Festival Guitares en Cormatinois. Click here for Guy Touvron’s website.
Despite the language problems (listening to French poetry is distinctly more demanding then chatting to the baker about the weather) it was a very pleasant evening. The music was of a high standard, as might have been expected from a guy like Touvron.
As tradition wants it, the last Sunday of the Festival was closed off with fireworks in the gardens of the Château, followed by the inevitable vin d’honneur. And this closing event is not just for visitors of the festival; the whole population of Cormatin is invited, and turns up as well!

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Fête du village

2009-08-24T13:31:00.002+02:00

When we arrived here in 2005, we did not have the foggiest idea what was happening in the villages around us. Slowly we started to built up a circle of friends, mainly through our French lessons. A couple of times a year our French teacher organises a soirée, where one meets his or her fellow students.
And all these people (mainly British) were talking over and over again about the village party in their village, and what they had to do to turn it into a success. One had to help set up the tables, another had to help out with the barbecue, etc.
And although we want to be part of our village, we were never aware of any village party. To fathom why we did not know, a little geography of the village might help understanding this.
When we go through Chazelle, e.g. to go to Cormatin, we have to take a road that is literally skirting the village. Along this road there are a number of houses; most of them are uninhabited; either because they simply are empty, or because they are second homes. As far as we know, there are is only one house permanently occupied. From this road there are three other roads, more or less perpendicular to the main road, going up hill, direction church. Hence the real village is situated on top of the hill, around the church. That is where all 30 permanent villagers live, including the mayor of Cormatin.
Last year, at the yearly brocante on 14 July, we bumped into the mayor’s wife. She told us, that the village party was going to be held on 4 August, and that we would receive an invitation. Lo and behold, a few days later we found an invitation in the letterbox. We phoned the contact person to find out what we were supposed to do (oh, just bring some wine and nibbles), and at the same time he told us why we had never been invited previously. Nobody really knew we existed, because everyone thought our house was part of the commune of Bray, and not of Cormatin. It was only because the mayor and his wife were on the committee this year, that they remembered to invite us! So we finally managed not only to be invited to wreath layings, but to the village party as well!
This year was our second village party. Contrary to last year, when a suckling pig was provided by the owners of “Le Petit Soif” (a cluster of houses, one of which is owned by the mayor), this year the set-up was a bit more sober. We had to bring 100 plastic plates and cups, and others donated wine, snacks, food for on the barbecue, cutlery, etc.
We think it is certainly thrilling to meet one’s fellow villagers. Even if half of them live most of the year in Paris, Lyon, Switzerland or other places……

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Flooding

2009-08-21T14:29:00.002+02:00

When our guests ask for it, we do a little guided tour along the remains of the old tile factory. We always start were the process of tile making started, i.e. at the clay pit in our filed. The occasional guest asks how it is possible, that a tiny little stream like the Grosne could have produced any significant amounts of clay. Of course clay sediments are not deposed overnight; the deposit is a matter of centuries. And that the Grosne in the summertime looks like a peaceful little brook, does not mean that it is always like that. In spring or autumn this little river can flood huge areas around here, especially when melting snow from the nearby hills combined with heavy rainfall in the area makes the river swell to proper river proportions.
It is not unknown to us, that under those circumstances the Grosne is a piddly little stream, and by lunchtime it has turned into a seething river, inundating the surrounding meadows and demolishing the protection of the banks. We have experienced floods about three times now. The last time even the road between Chazelle and the D981 (the road to Cormatin) was closed by the pompiers, and a few houses along that stretch were inundated as well.
Fortunately these things do not happen too often. the first time we experienced a flood at this scale was in April 2006, the last time in November 2008. On the pictures the height difference is well illustrated. On the first picture one can see, that the difference between the roof of the lavoir (washing place) and the level of the Grosne (water already approx. 75 cm above normal) is approximately 1.75 m (my height).
On the second picture the water has risen to the edge of the roof, hence approx. 2.5 m.
In the morning, on my way to the baker, the situation was as in picture 1. By lunchtime the same day the water had risen to the level on picture 2.
At that time the meadows around us were inundated, the road was closed, and everybody was wondering what to do about two pregnant mares that got caught on a protruding knoll. Luckily for the owner, in the late afternoon the horses could be rescued without any damage!

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Campsite contest

2009-08-19T14:11:00.006+02:00

This is going to be one of my shortest Blogs. My learned assistant, Mrs. Nixon Phd etc. (Oxbridge) has done some statistics, and there is nothing I can add to this. For those who like to know:
Click here

Another cat

2009-08-11T10:42:00.004+02:00

A couple of days ago Sue got a phone call from friends in Vaux (a village 11 km from here), that a birthday present had arrived for her. The fact that her birthday is not due for another 2 months, and that these friends had no way of knowing when her birthday was, made us very curious indeed.
So off we went to Vaux, to see what present Santa had brought us. Our friends were having dinner the previous night, when a little stray cat walked in. They gave it something to eat, and it kept lounging around their house. Seeing this as an act of God, knowing our “need” of a cat in view of the mouse and mole population, they decided to donate the cat to us. They lent us a cage, and told us that we should not let the cat out of the cage for at least a couple of weeks. That is easier said than done, having to put up with the soft but persistent moaning coming from the cage. We let the cat out as often and as long as possible, which makes it purr like a Singer sewing machine. In the meantime we have bought a leash, and although either the lead is too big or the cat is too small, and it manages to worm its way out every so often, we can now let it wander around the garden in search of, at least that is what we hope, mice and moles.
Hopefully in the near future we will have a cat wandering around the house, who would like to stay here…..
Click here to see part one of this saga.

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Dog Latin?

2009-08-04T12:32:00.003+02:00

The nearby village of Ameugny hosts a beautiful Romanesque church. It is one of many in this region; the abbey of Cluny has certainly left its traces in the area. The church is built of beautiful yellow stone, which has a stunning effect when the late afternoon sun shines on the church.
There is a tympanum above the church door, which may not be unique; however it is special in its own way, because the stone mason who made the tympanum has left his signature on it. On the lintel, at the bottom right hand corner, the following words are carved: “SEGVIN LAPIFEX MALEI”, which means “SEGUIN, STONE MASON FROM MALAY”. Malay is one of the many villages near here, with its own inevitable Romanesque church. I would have loved to make a picture of this signature, but my knowledge of cameras, light and photo editors was insufficient to come up with a photo showing a legible text. Fortunately one of our gîte guests has been teaching photography in the past and still is a keen photographer. He offered to help out, and he has not only taken the photos I wanted, but also made a collage of the various interesting parts of this tympanum. In the arch there is a central circle with an E carved in it. Funnily enough this E strongly resembles the Euro sign €! Around the circle four words are displayed. The whole thing must have been something like a mediaeval rebus. None of the words has an E in it. After filling in the E in the right place, the words “LX DI VRA ST” are transformed into “LEX DEI VERA EST”, which means as much as “Gods word is the truth”. The photograph attached is the collage made by Paul Geels (thanks a lot, Paul!). For those who cannot get enough of Romanesque churches, please click here to see more. The page is a first set-up of a collection of photos of churches in the area. They are ordered by post code and then alphabetically; this makes finding them on a map easier.

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Worth a detour?

2009-07-29T15:00:00.004+02:00

The least interesting tourist attractions are normally indicated in the Michelin Green Guide as being “worth a detour”. However, it does not mean automatically, that when certain attractions are not mentioned in the Green Guide, they are NOT worth a visit. Yesterday it was time again for a bit of analysis and investigation, in order to test the following equation: “Not being mentioned ïn a travel guide = Not worth a visit”.
In the nearby village Ameugny there is a tiny little shop selling “elf” related stuff, such as postcards with elves on them, plastic elves, terracotta elves, bakelite elves, etc. Look at the website
Behind the shop, called “Pays des Fées” lies, completely invisible from the road, a garden, the “Jardin des Fées”. Entrance fee € 2.50. After having made some overtime in order to afford this extravaganza, we plucked up the courage and bought tickets. The lady, who did the guided tour, was acting a bit strange to say the least. But, when you have been living where she does, at a stone throw away from a spiritual centre of a slightly different order (Taizé), obviously getting hardly any clientele from there, one can imagine that she has been getting a bit strange throughout the years. Once we had passed the barrier, it became clear how gigantic the garden was. Arab countries used to issue stamps bigger than her piece of land… But maybe the attractions in the garden were worth a visit. The pièce de résistance was a grotto, which entrance was supposed to look like the mouth of a dragon, including fearfully real-looking teeths. Not much less attractive was a little pond, fed from the mouth of a giant.
She (or her father, who had started this wonderful fairyland before he passed away) had been hiding all sorts of noise making gadgets in the grass, on tree trunks, in trees, such as bellowing cows, squeaking frogs, tinkling elves, all hidden in secret places, and activated by the innocent visitor. To give the whole experience an even more interesting aura, she was telling about the wonderful healing capacity of such well known plants as Busy Lizzies, Forget Me Nots, buttercups, etc. A new world opened itself to me…
I think the above is sufficient empirical proof for the thesis : “Not being mentioned ïn a travel guide = Not worth a visit”. I would advise anyone, who is passing by here, that the € 2.50 are far better spent on a cold beer on the terrace of L’Annexe on the Voie Verte, or La Terrace, Les Blés d’Or or Café de la Poste in Cormatin….
The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Cats, but not the musical

2009-07-23T08:50:00.003+02:00

Last year we got a bit startled by strange noises coming from the loft of the toilet block on the campsite. It sounded like something was running around at high speed, but what it was we did not know. Our best guess was a squirrel or a dormouse, both of which are abundantly present in this part of the world. But some campers were adamant that they had heard meowing as well.
We have no cats, so it seemed a bit far fetched, but soon all was revealed when we saw three tiny cats peering over the beams of the loft whenever someone was doing the washing up. A bit later we also noticed a big cat sneaking in to the toilet block in the morning, and sneaking out before lunch time. It appeared, that a cat from possibly a nearby farm wanted to kitten in a restful place, and had found the peace and quiet it wanted in our loft. Unfortunately, because of allergies of one of us, we cannot keep animals in the house. On the other hand, cats on the premises would be ideal to keep the amount of field mice and moles at bay. We decided to try and keep the cats here. We bought cat food, put it down in a quiet place together with a bowl of water, and were hoping for the best. The mother cat obviously ate the food and drank the water. Some wise guys told us, that we had to stroke the kittens every so often, to create a bond between human being and animal. But how to get hold of three red striped devils who shot off like rockets as soon as one only pointed at them?
After a while we found out that the cats had discovered that dangling toilet paper is a challenge for young cats. One can imagine the havoc three kittens can cause with paper they found in two toilets….
The mother was still visiting, but the visits were not so frequent anymore. One day we had to go out for a couple of days. We bought an automatic feeder for the cats, hoping for the best. The feeder is a very simple container with a hole at the bottom. Gravity moves the food from the container into the bowl attached at the bottom of the hole. The kittens obviously did not trust Newton, and decided to give him a helping hand. When we got home, the whole toilet block was covered in cat food. But all good things come to an end. One day the mother appeared, meowed a few times, and marched off into the woods, followed by the fabulous three. One came back for a short time, but by Christmas it was seen last, and never heard of ever since.
It was a very pleasant surprise when two of our campers, who went out for a walk came back followed by a small white kitten with a black tail. For totally unknown reasons the cat seemed to like it here, and it looks like we have got a new lodger on our hands. The cat likes to be stroked, patted, and is constantly trying to get into the house. We have bought some fresh cat food, put water out, and every morning we have a “stroke the cat” session. Every so often, for lunch the cat is being bribed with some leftover tuna from a tin, and the campers are also very caring for our youngest guest. How long this will last? Time will tell….
Well, time has told. The cat disappeared a couple of days ago, most likely never to be seen again....
The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Perseverance pays off!

2009-07-21T14:45:00.016+02:00

After we had been summoned by our mayor to start paying tourist tax, we found out that somehow in the process we had ended up on the address list of the Office de Tourisme (OT) in Saint-Gengoux-le-National. Saint-Gengoux is the “capital” of the Canton Cormatin is part of, and is located approx. 10 km from here. The OT in Cormatin (only open during the summer months) is a branch of the one in Saint-Gengoux.
Early 2008 all of a sudden we received an invitation for the assembleé générale of the OT. Of course we went, got a lecture on the costs made the previous year and on the achievements of the same year, and were asked to join up with the OT. For € 30 we had the right to leave brochures or flyers in their office, and for € 2 extra we would get a mention in their yearly brochure and on their website. Well, € 32 is not the end of the world, so we coughed up the dosh and were all of a sudden full fledged members of the OT. What was going to happen next was a bit of a mystery. By the beginning of 2009 we found out that at least our Camping à la ferme was mentioned on a poster displayed on the door of both OT’s, and we were invited to come to the yearly meeting of 2009. During the meeting we were a bit more pro-active, and asked what we actually had been paying for last year. Proudly the chairwoman showed us the brochure for 2009, where our name was prominently displayed under Campsites as well as under Gîtes rurales. For a mention on the website however they needed some more information.
In June 2009, after numerous visits to the OT, phone calls and emails we finally got a mention on the website. At the same yearly meeting we were asked if we would mind to host the vin d’amitié for a Balade Patrimoine organised by the OT Cormatin. The Balade would start in Cormatin, and would end at La Tuilerie in Chazelle. They would visit a couple of old buildings with an industrial past, like a derelict watermill, a former power plant and our old tile factory. We would serve drinks for the walkers and give them a guided tour around the drying shed and the kiln. On 15 July, late in the afternoon, around 20 walkers strolled through our gate. We had the tables ready, glasses, drinks and cakes were on standby, and after a little welcome speech we gave them the promised tour.
The whole thing turned out to be quite a success. The people were genuinely interested, had lots of questions which we answered as good as we could, and some even asked whether they could have a look at one of the gîtes that was empty. And, although the whole process of getting from the OT what we wanted took a long time, it has already paid off. We now get inquiries for the gîtes through them, and we have already had a number of campers which would not have found us if not through them.
The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Tax evasion

2009-07-21T14:45:00.015+02:00

By the end of 2006 we received a letter about tourist tax (taxe de séjour). As of 2007 we had to pay tourist tax, and we were supplied with ample examples of how the tax form worked, how to fill it in, and how we should calculate the tariffs.
It looked more complicated than it was. Campsite are normally rated with stars, and gîtes with ears of corn. The more stars or ears, the higher the tariff. since we are not registered with any organisation, we had no stars and no ears, and hence we should have to pay the lowest tariff, i.e. € 0.20 per person per night. children under 18 went free, and when the price per person per night was less than € 5.00, they did not have to pay tax either. It was obvious that, no mater what, we had to pay tax for the gîte guests. But the campsite was something different. At the time our tariff was € 5.00 per tent per night and an additional € 2.50 per person per night. Most campers were couples with one tent, and hence they spent exactly € 5.00 per person per night.
This should wake up the creative bookkeeper within every Dutch person.
Asking € 4.99 per tent and € 2.50 per person would result in € 4.995 per person per night; rounded off we got the dreaded figure of € 5.00 back again.
Before the tax was brought into effect, we had “lowered” our price for a tent to € 4.98 per tent per night. This brought our price per person per night (for 2 people in one tent) to € 4.99 per person per night. Doing this, we only had to pay for the lone traveller (€ 4.98 + € 2.50 = € 7.48 per person per night).
The first year, 2007, we paid exactly € 0.20 tourist tax (for 1 lonely camper), as opposed to € 61.60 for the gîte guests.
The second year we paid € 1.40 for the campers and € 71.20 for the gîtes.
However, knowing now that the tourist tax is actually used to boost tourism, e.g. by setting out walking trails with direction signs (Balades Vertes) evading tax this way looks a bit childish. This insight, combined with comments from a number of campers that we were actually too cheap (although hardly anyone decided to pay more voluntarily), made us change our policy radically and increased our prices on the campsite.
If we would have to pay tourist tax at this very moment, we should pay € 62.00, and the high season has not even started!
We sincerely hope to pay the tax man, with a smile on our faces, at least double this amount; thanks entirely to our campers!
The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Friends in high places

2009-07-20T08:33:00.003+02:00

When we moved in here, in September 2005, we tried to make an appointment with the mayor of Cormatin as soon as possible after we arrived, in order to get his approval, if necessary, for our plans. In the Netherlands the gap between magistrates and the population is quite big, hence we did not know quite well how to tackle this problem.
Anyway, we thought we just would pop in at the Mairie, register ourselves and ask for a carte de séjour. We knew that a carte de séjour was abolished in France, at least for EEC inhabitants, but it seemed a good enough excuse as an introduction to seeing the mayor. Although France has the name of being extremely bureaucratic, everything went very smoothly, and we left the Mairie with the date for an appointment with the mayor.
When after a couple of days we turned up for our appointment, the mayor was not there yet. This is also not unusual. Most mayors of these sort of villages are farmers, shopkeepers, etc. as well, and being mayor over a village of 500 citizens is really a part time job.
After a quarter of an hour the mayor turned up, an d he had a very relaxed interview with us. We told him exactly what we were planning to do, he knew our house and the previous owners well, and made it very clear, that as long as we would employ an architect to take care of building permissions, he had no intention what so ever to interfere with our plans. After this visit we could start looking for an architect and for builders.
The whole renovation was finished by September 2006. For that reason the gîtes could not open until May 2007; however, the toilet block was finished in May 2006, coinciding with the arrival of the first campers.
Although the mayor was passing by our property every morning, jovially waving at us when he saw us, he never stopped to have a chat. Since it is better to stay on good terms with a mayor in these sort of villages, we decided to invite him and his wife for drinks one evening to celebrate the “official” opening of La Tuilerie de Chazelle as a tourist trap.
Of course we were quite nervous about the whole affair, everything went very smoothly. He had his grandson with him, and he and his wife were very impressed with what we had achieved.
But everything has a price tag attached to it. We had been presenting ourselves as being in the tourist trade, not realising that our mayor was also the chairman of a conglomerate of small communes around us. And this conglomerate had decided, that everybody in the tourist industry, hence B&B owners, gîte owners and camp site owners, had to pay tourist tax as of the start of the new season. And guess who’s signature was prominently displayed under this letter!
The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Getting to know your neighbours

2009-07-17T12:24:00.005+02:00

Living in a beautiful old house, located at the edge of the forest, and about 2 km away from the nearest other house has a few disadvantages, which I was not aware of before we moved. One of those is the fact that there is no neighbour in sight when you want to practice your French. Before we moved to France in 2005 we had taken French lessons at the Alliance Française in the Netherlands, knowing that speaking the lingo is essential if you want to be part of your new environment. Once settled in here, we found a lady and retired teacher in a nearby village, Agnès R., who gave French lessons for foreigners.
But apart from those lessons, there were not many occasions to speak French. The conversations we have at the till in the supermarket, the baker or the Tabac, do not go much deeper than “Bonjour, Madame. Une baguette s’il vous plait. Merci, au revoir, bonne journée!”
We decided that we had to come up with something better.
By accident we stumbled on the various ceremonies in Cormatin. There are five in total; the last Sunday in April (day of the deportees ’40-’45), 8 May (liberation day 1945), 18 June (call to arms by de Gaulle from London 1940), 14 July (Bastille day 1789) and 11 November (armistice day 1918). Those taking part gather at the given time at the Mairie, and from there the group walks to the monument, the mayor puts flowers down, asks for 1 minute silence (which lasts 10 seconds), delivers his speech, the Marseillaise is played, and finally the Mayor invites everybody for a vin d’honneur in one of Cormatin’s bars. And during this vin d’honneur one can finally practice his or her French, and pick up the latest village gossip.
Needless to say that we were quite keen on these events. Everything went smoothly until the last Sunday in April 2007.We drove to the Mairie, past one of the two monuments, and we noticed that the flowers were already there. It was around 11 o’clock, which seemed to be the standard time for these ceremonies. Some of the regulars were having a beer on a terrace, and we could only assume that we were too late. Although the crowds at these ceremony normally consist of the Mayor and his deputy, the town council, the sappeurs-pompiers, a few veterans and a handful of people who are interested in this sort of thing, we were quite keen on not missing one. At least we showed there that we were interested in village life.
To make sure we did not miss out on the next occasion, 8 May 2007, we went into the Mairie to find out at what time we had to gather. A terrorist attack could not have caused greater chaos than our relatively simple question. The secretary did not have a clue, and asked her assistant, who also did not know. The deputy mayor was vaguely aware that there was something going on that day, but could not confirm the time. People were phoned, it was suggested that the information was faxed to the local newspaper, but the fax got lost in the process….
Finally the Mayor came out of his cubicle, asked what the problem was, went back into his office and came out with his diary; nothing in there either. In the end they rang the newspaper, and they confirmed that the wreath laying was planned for 11 o’clock on 8 May. We finally went home after half an hour, with the assurance of the Mayor that, because we were such “sympa” people, we would get a written invitation for the ceremonies in the future.
And we have never missed one since!
The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Festival Violons en Cormatinois?

2009-07-12T15:36:00.006+02:00

The guitar festival in Cormatin has come to an end. The last concert took place in the small Romanesque church of Chazelle, which is literally next door to us. On the program were works by Bach for solo violin, played by the young violinist Nicolas Dautricourt.
Looking in retrospect at the festival, there certainly was something strange about it. Not only was there not even one concert in the church of Cormatin, but on 3 concerts out of 5 not even a trace of a guitar was to be found…. A bit strange for a series called “Festival Guitares en Cormatinois”!
On the other hand, who cares when the music is good. We walked up to the church from home at about half past eight in the evening, armed with two cushions in order to be able to sit a bit more comfortable. Arriving at the church the whole in-crowd of Cormatin was there: the mayor and his wife, Pascale P. and some other members of the town council, the jeweller of “La Gadrielle” Patrick V. and his wife, the gardener Remy M. with wife and kids, who live in Chazelle, half the people who are involved in helping out at every event, the representative of the Conseil Général of Saône-et-Loire, our cultural attaché (as we call her) of the “Journal de S&L”, heavily perfumed with her favourite perfume “Gauloise” (stale cigarette smoke), in short, everyone of any importance in Cormatin and surroundings was present. Luckily there were also quite a few faces we had never seen before, or faces we only knew from the concerts around here. Anyway, it is the music that counts, and not the ambiance. Dautricourt happened to be a very talented violin player, who gave Bach just that little extra which turned the evening into an excellent concert night. The public gave him an ovation, followed by rhythmic hand clapping, the French way of begging for an encore. And it worked; he gave them two.
This time the planning with regards to selling drinks was slightly better organised then during the last concert we saw in this series. This time there was a proper break, during which one could choose to buy one or more of the four Cd’s Dautricourt had recorded. The buvette was open, and the sales of “Crémant de Bourgogne” could not have been better. And the cushions? We did not need them this time, for the simple reason that the church did have chairs, and they were much more comfortable than the run of the mill church bench!
The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Concert in Chapaize

2009-07-11T14:23:00.004+02:00

As mentioned earlier, this area is rich in culture. The many old, Romanesque churches are good examples of this heritage. All churches are owned by the state, and as in many other countries, the Roman Catholic church is loosing its grip on the masses. The result is that many churches only have a church service once every month, if not less often. Luckily, because the state owns the churches, they are sometimes used to host other venues, such as concerts. A beautiful example is the Church of St. Martin in Chapaize. It is still in use for services every so often, but on Saturday evenings throughout the summer it is used as a concert hall. Recently the volunteers organisation of Chapaize Culture had organised a concert here.
Click here for the website of Chapaize Culture
The theme of the evening was Baroque music, performed by an orchestra in period cloths. The company was called “Les Symphonies du Roy conducted by Daniel Ribolet. On the program there were compositions of Charpentier, Lully, Telemann, Rameau, Corelli and Bach.
This small orchestra had an interesting composition. There were 6 reeds (5 oboes and 1 bassoon, 4 brass (3 trumpets, 1 French horn) and 1 percussionist (kettledrums). There was a master of ceremony, or narrator, who introduced the pieces. He was dressed in a livery, with a long, white wig. The musicians were dressed in the uniform of the Musqueteers of the French king. After each piece they were supposed to stand up, put their hat with feathers on, bow to the audience and take off their hat very elegantly, the 17th century’s way. Fortunately they played better than they bowed.
The orchestra, although clearly an amateur orchestra, played with gusto, and in general quite well. Only 2 of the brass players had every so often some trouble in keeping up with the rest, in terms of rhythm and tempo as well as in terms of melody. This was distinctly noticeable in the Corelli Sonata for brass only. The director, one of the oboe players, is a teacher at the music school in Montceau-les-Mines, and certainly the other reed players were most likely some of his more gifted students.
In general one can say that the concert was a very enjoyable one.
Not all concerts given here are performed by French musicians. Because there are a lot of Dutch and Swiss people living around here, either permanently or temporarily, there are regularly concerts by Dutch and Swiss ensembles as well. Certainly the madrigals performed by a Dutch choir still sticks in my mind, not in the least because of the superb acoustics of this church.
The only drawback of this venue are the church seats. Even after five minutes I will develop an acute back ache; however, we bring our own cushions, which makes “sitting” out a concert possible!

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle

Tuileries in Bourgogne (1)

2009-07-09T09:16:00.004+02:00

It may be clear by now that we live in a tuilerie; to be more precise, in La Tuilerie de Chazelle. Chazelle is a small hamlet and part of the community of Cormatin. When we came here, we thought that a tuilerie was a roof tile factory. However, we found out that at least in in this part of Burgundy a tuilerie does more than just making roof tiles. Actually, we are not even sure whether this factory has ever produced any roof tiles at all. We have found numerous floor tiles, rectangular bricks and wedge shaped bricks with the inscription of the founder of the factory “Marembaud Noël, Chazelles, Cormatin, S&L”, but we have never found a single roof tile amongst the rubble where we found the others.
The founder of this factory, Monsieur Noël Marembaud, lived from 1855 to 1936. The previous owner of La Tuilerie de Chazelle, the grand daughter of Monsieur Marembaud, told us that the factory stopped production in 1924; then it was turned into a small holding. If we assume that the guy started his factory at the age of 30, the factory must have been producing bricks and floor tiles over a period of approx. 40 years.
Tuileries are usually located near a river (because of nearby clay sediments, in our case from the river Grosne), outside a village (because of the smoke pollution) and at the edge of a forest (because of the availability of fire wood). In the area here, which houses a number of rivers, such as the Grosne, the Guye, the Grison and the Saône, there are quite a number of old tuileries to be found, some in good shape, others completely run down. Some photographs of the various tuileries in the vicinity can be found on the following web page. Some Tuileries in S&L (71)
How did a tuilerie work? The clay was dug from a nearby quarry with shovels, and transported to the place where the clay was mixed. The clay mixer was a big barrel with a heavy mixer, which was propelled by horse power. When the clay, after adding water if necessary, had achieved the right consistency, the clay was formed into bricks by a brick press (one at a time!). After the bricks were formed, they were stored on a sand bed in the séchoir or drying shed. These séchoirs were usually long, low open buildings, where the wind had free play in order to dry the bricks naturally. The bricks were ready to go into the oven, when the sound they produced whilst the artisan was hitting one brick with the other had the right pitch.
the "four" or kiln is a very primitive “furnace”; it is usually a tall square tower with a roof, and big ventilation holes right underneath the roof. The walls are very thick. The kiln of La tuilerie the Chazelle has inside dimensions of 2.75 x 3.15 m (9’ x 10’-6”) and 1.8 m (6’) thick walls. The total height is approx. 10 m (34’), and the distance between grade level and the underside of the smoke or ventilation holes is approx. 5.5 m (18’). A kiln has two entrances. The lower entrance at grade level is approx 70 cm (2’- 4”) wide and 1.75 m (6’) high; the higher entrance lies opposite the lower one at 1.75 m (6’) up to 3.5 m (12’) and is 1.75 m (6’) high as well. Obviously they used the lower entrance when starting stacking the bricks up to a level of 1.75 m (6’). After having filled up most of the kiln area up to this height, they could not access the kiln any more from this entrance, and hence the filling continued through the second entrance up to a level of 3.5 m (6’). Once this level was reached, ladders were place outside the kiln against the walls, and the last layers of bricks or tiles were lowered from above through the ventilation holes. With regards to the stacking, there was one peculiarity. It was not enough to stack the bricks in such away that there were gaps between the bricks.
Our kiln has two tunnel shaped openings in the walls at ground level (which are now bricked up, but clearly visible). The first stones where stacked in such a way, that they formed a tunnel from the fire tunnels in the wall to the wall on the other side. Once the two tunnels were formed, the stacking continued the normal way. The bricks were stacked first, on top of the bricks the floor tiles were stacked, on top of those came the roof tiles, and the highest layer consisted of lumps of lime stone. Once the kiln was filled up, the entrances were bricked up and the fires were lit. The fire tunnels were filled up with faggots, and when these burned well, the fire was fed with logs and finally with coal. The whole process took about a month, from loading, firing, cooling to unloading. The capacity of our tuilerie was very small.
Assuming that the production consisted of bricks only, each cycle produced approx. 16000 bricks. Winter was used to get wood from the forest, but of course no clay could be dug from the quarries. there were possibly only four cycles per year. However, most houses in this area are built of stone, and bricks were mainly used for decoration around door and window openings. Hence the supply of bricks was possibly more or less equal to the demand.
As far as we know there is still one traditional tuilerie active in Bourgogne. The Tuilerie de la Chapelle de Sarre in Corbigny, Nièvre (58) still produces wood fired bricks, floor tiles and roof tiles. The factory has worked uninterrupted for 250 years. The old kiln however, although still in tact, has been replaced by a four room kiln, where the production is circulating continuously. Hence there is always one room being loaded and heated up, one fired, one is cooling down, and the last one is being unloaded. And although a proper factory, and not a tourist attraction, we were given a very interesting guided tour by one of the friendly workers there.
Click here to read the continuation.

The website of La Tuilerie de Chazelle