A spot of Bricolage.

  As I mentioned in my last episode, Kim (Mrs Noah) is away visiting our daughter, Alyson, and is in fact at this very moment in the air heading for Turkey, to accompany her on a fortnight`s holiday. In the meantime I have a certain freedom to carry out a few repairs and maintenance, in between caring for the Ark`s multitude of personnel and especially the most demanding of all, the new arrival, Storm  However, it was not in fact a long-contemplated redecoration or building project which came my way on Saturday but a bit of an emergency concerning our little building on the other side of the village road. I have mentioned this anomalous possession before,  it has recently been re-roofed and we use it as a food store or larder. I had noted a bit of a problem with the door lintel, but when I went in on Saturday  for some dog-food, the lintel was sagging down to catch the door and it was evident that something would have to be done

  As you can see from the picture at the start of the blog, it is a typical Poitou outbuilding with metre-thick walls built of the handsome local limestone.The wall above the door is supported by a lintel resting on the surrounds of the door. This is obviously built in when the walls reach the height of the door during construction. If you have a nice slab of Limousin oak, this is used to `roof` the door opening. If not and you are too mean to buy expensive timber, the deficiency is filled by several pieces of tree trunk, roughly squared or left round, as was the case here. One of these logs had rotted or been attacked by woodworm and had to be replaced. The pic on the left shows the sad remains.
  As you can imagine, it is not easy to replace this support, when it is set into the wall and supporting the masonry above. What I did, was to hack the remains out of the wall at each end and clear out the socket, enlarging it a bit with a chisel. Then I cut a replacement beam from a long rafter that a neighbour had given me some years ago (NEVER throw anything away! ) I cut it some eight inches wider than the doorway. Then it was a question of inserting the squared end into one of the sockets and pushing it in until the other end could be entered into its socket. I could then centralise the beam. The two ends rest solidly on the top of the door surround and it should be nearly as strong as the original, though not so deeply set in. It is certainly stronger than the old beam, because that had rotted right away at one end and was waving in the breeze.

   All in all, quite a satisfactory bit of repair, which has left me feeling quite proud. All done with local materials at zero cost!
  Bye for now, heading for my bed..Kim is going to ring when she arrives at the Turkish hotel, which will be in the early hours!!

Storm Warning-- New Ark crew-member.

Those of you who see Facebook may have noticed that there is a new face chez nous, so I thought it was time to introduce the latest addition to our crew. Meet Storm, a male (?) kitten who has come to join the Ark`s members.
   Mark, our neighbour, brought him down to us on Tuesday, asking if we could look after him that day and overnight, as he was taking his daughter Elia to a camp at La Palmyre. He told us that Elia had found the very young kitten abandoned in bushes. Thinking that it was one of a litter of kittens being reared by his own queen, he added it to the mob and it seemed initially to be accepted, only to be found rejected again in the bushes. Apparently it was not one of hers. Elia looked after it a couple of days but was due to leave for her camp. Really it was difficult for us as I was taking Kim to Paris the next day to catch the plane, but one look at the tiny grey form convinced Kim that there was a vacancy in the Ark`s crew due to a couple of deaths and the possible disappearance of Lilloo, who hasn`t been seen for months. So we asked Mark if we could keep him, which was probably his cunning plan all along...

   We took him with us to Charles de Gaule in the large cat box with suitable kitten milk, a thing Mark had not envisaged. He even came in the airport while Kim clocked in and came back with me on my lone and long journey back home. Now I`m left holding the kitten, as it were.
  He`s not a LOT of trouble, sleeps the night without needing feeding (I was fearing a two o`clock feed ) and sits quietly on my knee or rather, on my left hand, when I am at the computer, as he likes to suckle my palm after he has had his bottle. Still it does use up a fair amount of time to care for a baby like that. However, I will have a caste-iron excuse for not having done as much DIY as expected, when Kim gets back!
 
     Bye for now, got to make up a bottle.....

The varnished truth.

  This week it has been the week of the varnishing of the kitchen. Kim is jetting off from Charles de Gaule airport on wednesday to spend some weeks with Alyson and wanted to complete the renovation before she went. She has been toiling like a forcenée to finish in time and has just succeeded. First we had to clear the kitchen of its furniture and as it is also our normal living room this was a task in itself. It has all been packed into the lounge, which looks like a furniture sale-room . She then sanded off the old vitrificateur with a hand-held electric sander and we had dust galore for several days. Once the dust had settled and been vacuumed away, it was the time to re-varnish.
   However it`s not so easy as that. Our large kitchen is at the centre of the house. The front door to the street opens off it, the stairs to the grenier and bedrooms also together with the door to the entrée and bathroom and the rear exit to the cour. If you varnish it all at once you are effectively debarred from access to these areas. A complicated plan of leaving narrow corridors had to be devised. Also, the animals had to be excluded on pain of death...The coffee machine migrated here and there also the electric kettle.

  However, all`s well that ends well and we can begin to re-colonise our smart kitchen. Kim has done a fine job and we are both very proud of the restored area!

   Bye for now, Kim has woken up and come down for coffee and to admire her work.

Oh, when the Saintes....

  As I have said before, it is often due to the visit of a friend or relative that we are driven to explore in more depth the attractions of the Region. Patrick and Cécile from Lille are with us this week, and we decided to visit Saintes.   Patrick is a lover of `vielles pierres` and Saintes has an abundance of Roman remains to satisfy anyone.
  However, before starting on the Romans, we visited the Church of St. Eutrope, site of the burial of the above-named saint.

  We were  going to have a `visite guidée` but due to heavy traffic, arrived a bit late and missed the tour. Still, we had a good poke around on our own. The church is huge and has been rebuilt and extended from time to time as such buildings are. What most struck us was that there are, in fact, two churches, one on top of the other. There is a creepy crypt underneath, which used to welcome the pilgrims making the trip to Compostelle and a much more luxurious and better lit church above, which was reserved for the monks! On the left is a shot of the crypt with the stone coffin of the Saint, only about three feet long, which seems to suggest a very modest size! However we learnt that his `chef` or head was not included and was on site in the main church above, where it enjoyed a more luxurious reliquary... I believe also that the remnants of the Saint had been gathered up and re-buried at a time well after his death by martyrdom.
  Later, we went to visit the Arcus Germanicus, the substantial  arch at the head of this blog. This edifice originally was situated at the beginning of the Roman bridge across the Charente . This was the lowest permanent bridge across the river and was the main reason for the founding of the town at this spot. When the bridge was replaced with a more modern one many years ago, the Arch was removed and rebuilt in its present position nearby.
 We also had a wander round the old town abattoir, which now houses an impressive collection of Roman stones and statuary
   After a picnic lunch in a well-kept park, which had a small collection of fowl and some goats, we went on to see the amphitheatre, one of Saintes` main attractions. This time we did not miss the start of the guided visit and the young lady showing us around was very well informed of all the facts and figures.
 The arena was built in about 50 AD profiting from a natural valley to provide support for the seats on each side. The top of the valley was filled in and the remaining end had a wall and sub-structure built to support the rows of seats. Not much of the superstructure remains but as you can see from my photo, the arena itself is almost intact and gives a good idea of its original shape. It was used for gladiatorial combats including fights with local fauna such as wolves,bears and sangliers. The most important personages had front-row seats and to stop them having a too-close view of the animals, a stone parapet with a sort of lip formed the top of the wall separating the arena from the benches. Stakes and a net were also fitted to protect the spectators.

At each end of the arena, there were entry and exit tunnels. The tunnel at the bottom of the valley was the `live` entry where the gladiators and animals would parade into the ring, At the other end was the `dead` exit where fallen competitors were dragged off to the morgue...This is the West end, perhaps the origin of the saying `He`s gone West`? Here is a pic of the gloomy exit tunnel. Strange to stand where so many unfortunates had been unceremoniously dragged out!.

After the presentation, as we made our way out of the bottom of the amphitheatre, seats were being arranged for a musical event.  There`s life in the old site yet!!!
  Bye for now, or should I say `Hail, Caesar!`

What`s in a name?

 

  Here`s a little quiz for you to ponder..What do the French towns of Pissotte, Arsy,  Ars-en-Ré and Germ have in common?  Give up?  Well, they are all town names that have evoked a snigger from our daughter Alyson, together with an absolute prohibition of our moving to any one of them. It must be admitted that Al has a sense of humour a little `low` but it must also be admitted that the French have a perverse genius for giving their towns and villages ridiculous or even rude names.
  Last night I had a look through the index of our Michelin and found an absolute plethora of rude or ridiculous names.Apart from the above examples, I found Silly (a town of idiots?), Chilly (bit nippy?) Bossey (a long argument before the Maire imposed his choice?) Miséré ( a happy town, not) Messy (tidy little place) Brain (town of know-alls) Corny (load of comics) Hinges ( swingers?) and Douzy (an Americanism?). A town which is a little liable to flood must be Dampvalley Les Coulombes, `les Canards` would have been more appropriate. There are also some names which must be ridiculous even to the French, like Hérisson (hedgehog) and Longcochon perhaps named by an explorer returned from the Pacific. However my personal favorites are Largeasse (to be avoided by anglophones with a weight problem and the rude and improbable Pissy-Poville (the O having a `roof` accent over it which I can`t reproduce on my English keyboard). Any comment I might dare to make on this last would incur the wrath of Mrs Noah.
  I wonder if house values are lower in these villes?  Certainly I would have though twice about buying there, although our own rather sad name of La Mort Limouzin did not deter us. Does any reader have any other favorite candidates?

Bye for now, coffee time!

Sunday trip to the Vienne

It has been rather hot and sticky these last few days and poor Mrs Noah has been feeling the heat. She doesn`t mind it in Turkey, she says, where she can lie about on a transat and get people to bring her drinks, but at home it stops her doing things and she feels guilty. The remnants of a strict Welsh upbringing, of course, what the modern generation would call appalling cruelty leading to permanent psychological damage and we refer to as normal bringing up... However it has cooled a bit today, with even a few light showers, so we decided on a joy-ride this afternoon.
  We like discovering new places, the trouble is they have all been discovered in the locality so  we have to go further afield. A perusal of the map revealed a little town called Exideuil-sur-Vienne, which looked promising. I like towns on a river or sea bank, and we have already tried most of the Charente-side ones. The Vienne would be a fresh river to explore. To add a spice of variety, the GPS or Satnav was set to get us there by the shortest route which always ensures an entertaining viewing of unknown by-ways.
  Unfortunately, as this was a spur of the moment decision, the camera was forgotten, so I can`t show you any pics of the town. Google will fill the breach if you`re interested. We were left with the impression of a thriving little town of some antiquity, on the banks of the Vienne river, which here was wide and swift-flowing but endowed with enormous, dangerous-looking rocks in mid-stream. Navigable it was not, except possibly by canoe.
  We had a brief look at the church, which was large but grim. It looked as if it was designed to serve as a fort. though it did have an attractive spire and a fair ring of bells. However inside the barrel-vaulted interior, it was the darkest church I have EVER seen, just two or three smallish windows whose light was further diminished by being fitted with orangey-brown stained glass! Some votive candles were available and I seriously considered buying one to see my way about..  After waiting until our eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness, we were able to make out some interesting things, a huge granite font and a holy-water stoop almost as large. I noticed the stone coffin of a knight, indicated by a sword carved in the granite.
  After leaving the town, we went up the river to Confolens, and home by a more familiar route. A very enjoyable afternoon, doing what we love to do.. exploring the French countryside.

    Bye for now, tea calls!

Reports of my demise have been much exaggerated...

What I am trying to say in my title is that I have not blogged for ages, and I thought I had better try to bring my faithful fan up to date. I publish above photographic proof of my excuse for the lapse of time, the visit of Alyson and Kerri our daughter and grand-daughter respectively, which left little time for a reflective blog. Admittedly they left on Saturday, but once out of the habit it is hard to re-start. There.  Excuse over...what happened during the visit?
   Well, apart from a pleasant stay and a chance to get up-to-date with Kerri, who I have not seen for ages, one of the highlights of their stay was a trip to le Puy du Fou. This, for anyone who doesn`t know it, is a theme park a couple of hours to the north of us and is one of our favorite visits. Its theme is broadly speaking the conflicts and life in the Vendée in earlier centuries, and it has a fine re-enactment of a Viking attack in the First Century and an English raid somewhat later, foiled by Joan of Arc and by magic...The enormous granite keep which starts to turn around and a fort wall that disappears into the ground literally made my mouth fall open when I first saw them! The English raiders used to be portrayed with mouths drooling blood but they seem to have toned that down a bit... There is also a HUGE theatre whose stage fills with water through which the horses splash impressively, a full-size Roman arena in which Christians are apparently thrown to the tigers   and other shows to numerous to describe. If you haven`t been, do go, you won`t be disappointed.

  Kim`s favorite is the Bal des oiseaux phantomes, a huge display of hawks, vultures and other birds, flying free very close to the spectators.The park has its own Falconry School and several dozen birds are involved in the display, including hawks, vultures and a Secretary Bird, which eats snakes,
 and even storks . A skein of geese have even been trained to form up on a micro-light.

For the finale, a swarm of hawks descend from a balloon tethered overhead. It`s all rather  impressive.

  However, I would like to finish this blog by telling you of a scientific discovery which was NOT envisaged by the Park. Alyson`s eye was caught by a Poitou donkey grazing in an enclosure bounded by wooden railings. She went over to talk to it and stretched her hand over the fence to stroke its neck. She didn`t notice that the top rail of the fence was backed up by a thin wire, stretched between glass insulators... As her arm drooped down a bit, she received a belt from the electric fence which made her leap back, clutching her arm. But the electricity had a strange side-effect, never before remarked upon by scientists-- the bodice of her dress fell down around her waist, displaying her charms to the world, which luckily was confined to Kerri. Isn`t that  strange? Kerri found it so I am sure and giggled for some time... Al complained about the lack of warning notices, though there was a small one, in French, of course, a little way away.
   We had a lovely day apart from this incident. We had borrowed a wheel-chair for Al, as although she normally gets around well with her crutches, would find a whole day on her feet very tiring. We were pretty tired ourselves hauling it around, up hill and down dale but luckily didn`t let it run away, though the hills were steep in places. The park is very good at allowing disabled access and we had front-row seats at all attractions, thanks to Al! We got home exhausted and rather sunburnt at about ten-thirty and were not sorry to see our beds!

    Bye for now, I will try to keep up the impetus now I`ve started!