A cross and a pair of shoes - Sunday 6th December

Two years ago I did my first Silent Sunday post, a picture of Tom leaping over a muddy puddle (and yes, he did land safely on the other side!).  In those 2 years I have only missed one post and have really enjoyed adding a picture a week.  But I think that now it's time for a bit of a change.  So on Sundays from now on I shall still post a photo, it will still be taken during the preceding week but I will also add a bit of context to the image.  Do let me know what you think.

First up, a cross and a pair of shoes.

Travel around France and you cannot help but see roadside crosses everywhere and even in our tiny village there are four.  More of these in a later post, though.  This picture is, however, from a cross in the next village of Saint Vigor-des-Mézerets.  Each time I have walked past there has invariably been some baby shoes or socks at it's base.  If none are there one time there will be some the next time.  Initially I thought someone had dropped them in the road whilst on a walk but now I suspect a more poignant story is being told in these tiny boots at the base of a roadside cross in Normandy.  It makes me feel very sad.

 

Sunday picture revealed: It was a frost flower

Posted by Rosie

Yesterday I posted this picture as my Silent Sunday/My Sunday Photo and sat back to see if anyone knew what it was. 

A Frost Flower

I am writing this blog at gone 7pm on Sunday and so far only one person has guessed and another was on the right lines before changing their mind. Emma at Bavarian Sojourn guessed it right and Phoebe from Lou Messugo was on the right tracks before she changed her mind!

“Another one of your cryptic photos...I first thought it was ice and then realised it couldn't be as there isn't any on the top side of the branch so it must be a weird fungus. Very beautiful.

In fact it is ice in the form of something called a Frost Flower. A frost flower is the name given to the condition when thin layers of ice in the form of what looks like fine hair are extruded from usually dead branches.

Frost flowers will form when the air temperature is below zero degrees but the ground itself is not frozen.  The sap in the stem will expand as the temperature falls below freezing causing fine fissures to form along the branch.  Water is drawn out through these these fissures and as it meets the freezing air it freezes into these hairlike formations.  They melt quickly in the morning sun so are generally only seen early in the morning or in very shady spots.

I have seen them 3 times now and their beauty never ceases to amaze me.  The first time I saw them, like many of the people who commented on the post yesterday, I thought they were a fungus but as you hold them in your warm hand and they disappear almost at once leaving just the slightest dampness in their wake, their true nature is revealed.

I know I am very  lucky to have seen frost flowers.  Have you ever seen them?

A Roomful of Wasps!

Posted by Rosie

Mid November may seem to be an odd time to be blogging about wasps but look closely at the picture I took yesterday and you will see that this is a picture of A LOT of dead wasps:

Thousands of dead wasps and ceiling plaster

It all started back in the summer when I noticed some wasps buzzing around Tom's bedroom window.  As I watched I realised that they were in fact going in through a hole above the lintel and so there must be a nest in the wall.  As a family we are not over keen on wasps (in fairness who is?) as Simon and I react badly to stings and the boys are scared of them.  They can also be a real pain when you are eating outside.  That said these wasps were not at all annoying or aggressive and we could eat our meals in peace.  We therefore decided that maybe the best thing would be to let Nature take her course, allowing the wasps to die over winter and the queens to relocate to new nests next year. (Old nests are not reused).

However, as with all the best laid plans this was not to be.  When in Tom's room it was possible to hear a lot of chewing activity in the nest, followed later by the appearance of an ominous brown damp patch on his ceiling.  There was a crack big enough for a wasp to squeeze through between the wall and the ceiling and wasps were in fact arriving in the room.

Tom was moved to the loft bedroom and we bought some wasp killing spray.  Despite this being deadly to wasps you need to get the spray into the nest but as there was 60cms of wall between the entrance and the nest this proved impossible.   Enter our bee keeping friend, Richard who bravely said he'd don his bee suit, dig up though the ceiling and spray directly into the nest from underneath.  Errm , more best laid plans and all that ....

He managed to dig some of the plaster away but where we had previously had calm wasps, now, when their home was under threat they became very angry, stinging Richard through his bee suit and then getting up inside it, stinging him umpteen times. Having got this far and despite my yelling from the other side of the door to get out NOW, Richard was not one to give up and he made enough of a hole to spray up into the nest before exiting with a cartoon-like trail of wasps following him down through the house and outside. 

The next day there were hundreds, if not a few thousand, wasps dead on the floor but a lot of agitated live ones flying round the room.  That night we (well Simon actually) went back into the room and sprayed more wasp killer into the nest.  It was then a waiting game as the product does not kill the larvae and these needed to hatch, at which point they would be poisoned by the remaining spray in the nest and die.  Over the next few weeks more and more dead wasps dropped to the floor until finally we decided, with some several thousand now dead, that the nest was wasp free and we (by which of course I mean Simon) could try and dig it out.

Cutting through the ceiling and into the nest

The papery base of the nest

The hole where the nest had been

The honeycomb interior of the nest

The nest was wonderful, a fine example of nature's creativity at her best but sadly a case of a bad choice of location for this colony.  Wasps are actually very useful in the garden, eating aphids and other pests and it is generally only in late summer when they gorge on fallen fruit and become somewhat intoxicated do they tend to sting more.  

We also have found a hornet's nest in an ash tree in the valley and this one we have left. We have not seen any hornets up near the house and like the wasps, all bar the queen will die over winter.  There are still a few flying around though as the mild autumn continues but soon they will be gone until next year ... when we hope they will chose a new home equally far away from the house.

Hornets leaving their nest (September)

Google has been down our Road!

Posted by Rosie

When we first moved to France in 2007 the Google street car taking street view pictures had only been down the main roads in this area. Now it has been down our road so the start to our front drive is there for the world to see:

Our driveway as seen on Google Street View

The date says it was taken in September 2014 and by the direction of the shadows it was taken fairly early in the morning.  Also because the dustbin lids are off it was likely to have been a Wednesday morning ... or possibly a Thursday if no-one had remembered to put the lids back on after they were emptied!  I think I may have lost my vocation as a detective!

Heading down the road a bit you can just see Eco-Gites of Lenault across the fields but with the trees still in leaf we are hard to catch a glimpse of.

In winter you do get a better view but you get  a pretty good view of us at any time of year from across the valley:

Our view from across the valley on Google Street View

Much as I am impressed with Google getting here I would have been even happier had they come in Spring when all the wind flowers are out.  Then we would have had street views looking like this, the road heading down to the valley bottom from the gite:

The valley road in March

Below is the Google image of the valley road in September - the more I look at it the more I think I am not in exactly the same place!  It took me so long to get this image though it will have to do.  It proves the point though.

Same view from Google in September

Have you had a look at Google Street View where you live? If so does the image you see have a  story to tell?

Poor Poppy

Posted by Rosie

Poppy, Feb 2104

Way back in February I posted this picture of Poppy looking really miserable in a "lampshade".  She had just come back from the vet as something has caused her to start licking a patch inside one of her back legs to the point of it forming a granulated and sore lump.  The vet said we needed to stop her licking there and hopefully the lump would go.  Well over the coming weeks she wore the "lampshade" but as soon as we removed it she would start licking again.  We even tried a muzzle as we thought this might be less of a hassle for her but she really hated that, where-as she kind of accepted the "lampshade".

We then learnt from the Internet that dogs such as Labs can be susceptible to this incessant licking resulting in lumps - a form of canine OCD that has various causes including stress. Ben pointed doubt that maybe the "lampshade" and the muzzle were actually stressing her. We took a risk and totally removed both and she appeared to stop licking.  Yeah - maybe we had won?

Or maybe not.

A few weeks ago I noticed another far larger lump on her belly and she also appeared to have been licking the original lump again, making it sore again.  This time the vet reckoned that the original lump was infected internally and the pus from it was draining into what she called a ganglion in her belly.  She suggested a course of anti-inflammatories and ant-biotics.  Hey ho, by the end of the course BOTH lumps had gone.  Maybe this time we had won?

Or maybe not.

A week or so on and the lumps returned.  The vet was rather flummoxed and decided that the best course of action would be to remove them both and have them analysed to ensure they were not cancerous.  Poor Poppy went in last Monday and came home later, free from lumps but sporting 2 very impressive scars and that "lampshade" again..

We are now waiting to see the results of the analysis.  In the meantime Poppy is doing fine although sulking as she is only allowed walks on a lead. There are however two advantages of all this.  Wearing the "lampshade" makes it much harder for her to steal food and being stuck on a lead means she cannot steal fallen hazelnuts whilst we are out which means we are spared the horrible sound of her crunching through the shells to get to the kernel.   To be honest though, I'll put up with stealing and crunching if we can finally get this issue sorted once and for all.

Poppy

Grande Fête Foraine de la Saint-Gilles

Posted by Rosie

Every day in France has at least one Saint dedicated to it.  September 1st is the day dedicated to Saint-Gilles and the first weekend after is always the date for a large fairground (Fête Foraine) and boot fair (Vide Grenier = Empty Loft) in the centre of Condé-sur-Noireau.  It is always something the boys look forward to and something I hope they will forget about ... I am not a lover of fairgrounds although I do like a good boot fair.  Sadly they did not forget about it and despite offering them a trip to the beach they insisted we went to Condé instead.

Fairground rides

Fairground games

Reglisse (liquorice) in some wonderful colours

Sausage in a baguette anyone?  So French.

The Boot Fair

So did the boys think they had made the right decision of fair over beach?

Yes and no - we gave them 10€ each to spend or save as they wanted.  Ben chose not to go on any rides and saved all his money.  Tom went on one ride and saved the rest.  Overall they were at the age where they had outgrown many of the younger rides and there was not a huge selection of older ones.  They both saw that spending their money of fairground games was probably a waste in view of the poor quality prizes they may have won but the did like the atmosphere and of course came away richer than when they went.  Was this better than the beach?  I am not sure they actually thought so!  It'll be interesting to see if they want to go next year.

As for me - I did get a plant at the boot fair and I loved this tea stall:

Tea anyone?

I also think I might have preferred the Foire as it was around 1900 - an farm animal fair!  Not many ladies to be seen in this photo though, but I love the farmers in their Sunday-best smocks.

Foire de Saint Gilles, Condé-sur-Noireau c 1900

Are you a thrill seeker who likes fairground rides?   And what about a Boot Fair?  Do you love them or hate them?

Horse Meat - Would you eat it by choice?

Posted by Rosie

At the market last week I saw this sign advertising a horse meat stall:

Horse Meat Butcher.  It's good for your health

Now I am sure that across the world this would elicit many different reactions.  In some central Asian countries is it the most commonly eaten meat and in much of Europe, South America and Asia as a whole it is eaten in varying amounts.  However in most English speaking western countries (UK, USA, Australia etc) and it is generally seen as taboo to eat horse meat, although not actually forbidden.  China eats the highest amount of horse meat of any country in the world:  1,700,000 animals equating to 204,000 tonnes of meat (Source Wikipedia.)

So why the variations?  In central Asia, horses are the best animals to raise on the steppes for meat and are raised in the way the west raises cattle for beef.  It makes simple economic sense to eat horse meat.  However in the West horses have long been given the status of a pet or working companion and it is deemed unacceptable to eat you pet or your workmate! 

I am not sure why this status escaped horses in France - it is a well known fact that large amounts of horse meat was eaten the 1870 Siege of Paris so perhaps that was when the taboo was lost and it became acceptable.   Now in France there are specialized butchers, "boucheries chevalines", who sell horse meat.  It is at times found in supermarkets who have been allowed to sell it since the 1990's but you will not find horse meat at a "normal" butcher's shop as it is forbidden for them to sell it. 

Then there is the all too recent horse meat scandal with processed meats in the UK being sold as beef when in fact they contained large amounts of horse meat and the meat itself could not be traced back to source.  Quite possibly much of this meat entered the food chain illegally as stolen animals.

When I was in Germany as a teenager I ate horse meat but was not told until afterwards as the family I was staying with believed I would otherwise have refused it.  In fact no, I was (and still would be) happy to eat horse meat so long as it was a horse raised for purely for meat in the same way that a cow is raised for beef i.e. it was never a pet or working animal and it was correctly slaughtered and traceable.  What I do not want to eat is horse meat labelled as something else not do I want to want any type of meat that is not traceable.  It is one of the main reasons we produce our own meat as we then know exactly what we are eating and that the animals have had a good life.

For anyone who might like to try horse meat here are three recipes, taken from a 19th-century French cookbook.  Apparently it tastes not unlike beef and is a healthy meat with low amounts of fat.  

So would you eat horse meat?  Yes or No?  I'd love to hear.

The Battle for Lénault

Posted by Rosie

Last Sunday I posted up a picture of the memorial in Lénault honouring the brave soldiers who liberated the village from the Germans in WWII. Since then I have been trying to find out a bit more about what happened 70 years ago in August 1944.  My searches online have not proved massively fruitful but this is what I have come up with some information.

The 7th Somerset Light Infantry who liberated Lénault were part of the 43rd Wessex Division and they landed on the Normandy beaches about 2 weeks after D-Day.  They may well have been involved in the battles for Hill 112 (where a friend's father lost his leg but survived) and Mount Pinçon, just north of Lénault.  Mount Pinçon is the highest point in Calvados, making it strategically vital for the Allied troops to secure.  The result was extremely heavy bombardment to the surrounding villages and town of Aunay-sur-Odon at it's foot.  There was much loss of civilian life.  A memorial on the Mount has been erected by the 13th/18th Hussars by way of an apology for this destruction.  

Memorial on Mount Pinçon

Lénault's neighbouring village of Le Plessis Grimault also took a battering as the Germans were holed up in the tower of the old abbey church with a large gun.  It was finally liberated on August 7th, 3 days before Lenault.

Allied troops in Le Plessis Grimault

For Lénault these may have been saving graces.  Once Mount Pinçon and Le Plessis Grimault were secured German troops may have withdrawn with less of a battle leaving Lénault empty.  I am only guessing this mind.  I do know that the house at the end of our drive was destroyed by a bomb during the war - I do not know when though.

What I do know for sure is that no part of the army took a direct route in any of their campaigns of La Bataille de Normandie.  On this map Lénault is just to the east but you can see what convoluted routes different battalions took.  After Lénault, the 7th Somerset Light Infantry headed north east to Clécy and ultimately east to Berlin.  One of the soldiers in this battalion was Thomas Yearsley who would later unveil the plaque now on the wall in Lénault.  However his story poignantly illustrates that whilst the battle for Normandy saw defeat for the Germans it wasn't until the following year, 9 months later that war in Europe ended and another 3 months after that for it to end in the Far East.  Thomas was later captured by the Germans and served out the rest of the war as a prisoner of war.   There was still much suffering before peace was finally secured.

I would be very interested to hear from anyone who may have more information on the war around Lénault.  Please do get in touch either in a comment or by emailing us here.  Many thanks.

A trip to Fougères

Posted by Rosie

On Saturday friends were travelling up from Poitiers to catch the ferry at St Malo at the end of their holiday and wanted to meet up with us somewhere on their way back.  Fougères, just over the border into Brittany is an hour and a half from us and en route for them and not somewhere we had been before.  A quick look on Google confirmed it seemed a nice place to visit and so the meet up was arranged.

Our friends were due to arrive at around 2.30 so we decided to get there earlier so we could have a look round the town before lunch with them and then a trip round the castle together.

Saturday is market day in Fougères and a very nice market it is to.  We didn't buy anything but thoroughly enjoyed perusing the wide variety of stalls and taking in the atmosphere of what was a very pretty town.

Locally made dried sausages - "saucisson".

Organic Fruit and Vegetables

After the market and a coffee we ambled our way down to the castle.  Interestingly the castle was not on the highest point as you might expect but at the base of the hill and the more modern town is high in the hill.  We wondered why but later learnt that this was because of water - a well had been dug in the centre of the castle to provide residents with water when they were under siege where-as there was no well water on the higher ground.

Our walk took us first through what is now the town gardens next to the church where there are some fabulous floral displays which you'll find on this garden post.  It is also where we found this pretty heart-shaped window:

Heart shaped window at Fougères

 

Town gardens at Fougères

After the gardens we found ourselves in the Medieval part of the town with it's narrow streets and old buildings where there were plenty of signs explaining about the buildings and what went on there:

Fougères was a major tanning town in the Middle Ages

Medieval Fougères

We had lunch with our friends at a very nice and not at all expensive restaurant just outside the entrance to the castle we then went into the castle itself. 

A nice spot for lunch

As you might expect with a couple of boys, we have visited a fair few castles in our time. How did this one rate?  Pretty darn good I would say.  It was imposing, there was plenty to see and do and we really liked it.  But that is all I am going to say and maybe one day you will visit Fougères and sometimes knowing less about a visit can make it all the more enjoyable.  We didn't know anything about the castle but we definitely felt the 20€ we spent on entry fees was well worth it.  The only thing I would point is that if you have a pushchair there are rather a lot of steps you where you will have to carry the pushchair up and down. 

Fougères Castle

Fougères may not be the closest castle to Eco-Gites of Lenault but I heartily recommend both the castle and the town itself for a day trip.  Have you been and if so what did you  think about it?

A Prickly Problem

Posted by Rosie

Situated deep in rural Normandy, Eco-Gites of Lenault is lucky to have a very healthy wildlife population around and about.  On the bird front this includes one of my best-loved small birds, goldfinches.  One of the favourite foods of goldfinches are the seeds of thistles and related plants and they seem oblivious to the spikes on the plants as they flit among the plants gathering the downy seeds.  When we first arrived here, the area that is now the play area was full of thistles and we saw many goldfinches.  Now these have been cleared the goldfinches have to look else where for their seeds ... not too far though as there are thistles plenty around ... including this lovely large patch between one of the pig pens and the veg patch.  

A Prickly Problem - our thistle patch

But there is a problem.  

On the plus side, thistles, as well as providing seeds for goldfinches, are much loved by bees, butterflies and other insects.  

But on the minus side they are a really prickly problem in the veg garden growing faster than the veg and being painful to weed out by some-one like me who prefers not to garden in gloves.

A bee feasting on a thistle

We have been watching this patch of thistles grow knowing what a great wildlife resource it is but also knowing what a menace thistles are in the garden.  Should we let it go to seed or should we strim it down?  There is also the issue in France that if you do not keep certain agricultural weeds under control (including thistles and blackberries) you can get a message from the Mayor's Office advising you to clear them or ... actually I don't know what stick they use to get you to clear them but I would rather not receive such a letter.  (In fairness though, I very much doubt our little patch would be on their radar, but you never know!).

Anyway, we have decided - well actually I have and the thistle patch must go.  I am finally getting on top of the thistles in the veg patch and if the seeds the goldfinches don't eat get blown in there it will be put back several years of hard work.

However we are not totally without thistles - there are a good number in the area we call the quarry beyond the play area and this is well away from the veg patch.  There is also our herb garden and whilst there are no thistles there the mint, marjoram and other herbs are an absolute magnate for bees and butterflies.

Butterflies on our herb garden

Hopefully we have found a compromise that keeps both me the gardener and the local wildlife happy.  I would love to have kept these thistles but I know my fingers would tell me otherwise later on.

Would you have kept the thistles for the wildlife or would you have cleared them?  Please to drop us your views in a comment.