Etableau is a hamlet with a very large ruined chateau, close to le Grand Pressigny. The road from Preuilly to le Grand Pressigny passing through Etableau is narrow, lined with houses on both sides, and always has cars parked on one side. Not long after we moved to France a 30km/h speed limit was introduced where the road passes the houses, and a year or two later an electronic speed sign was erected. It can feel a bit sketchy driving through the hamlet because people still drive too fast for the view they have of the road ahead. Yesterday I was driving to le Grand Pressigny and noticed that ..read more

That's not it's official title - officially it's gosht anna palak nu shaak.  It's a recipe I found in The Guardian a couple of years ago but hadn't cooked before now. I followed the recipe faithfully except for a couple of things: I didn't add salt to the curry sauce, I used chard instead of baby spinach (didn't have any) and I used ordinary white rice, not basmati. The lamb was a couple of bags of trimmings that came with the side of lamb we buy every year, and is perfect for this sort of dish. It's a super easy recipe, even if it reads a bit complicated. The level of spice was sp ..read more

Adder's Tongue Fern Ophioglossum vulgatum (Fr. Langue de serpent).  Five years ago I could hardly believe my eyes! A rare and protected fern suddenly appeared in the orchard. I had no idea where it had come from and I'd never seen it before anywhere, despite spending lots of time with botanists and seeing many rare and protected plants here.  This year I'm thrilled to see that the Adder's Tongue is everywhere in the orchard, stretching in a broad band from north-east, where the original station is, to south-west, up under the sour cherries. I've never seen so many individual plants ..read more

Here are some photos from the Botamyco37 outing to the Chateau de Brou yesterday. We were focusing on lichen, but there were some interesting insects too. As ever, Marie-Claude did a great job of organising and providing expert field teaching. Patrick, Marie-Christine and me in action. Photo courtesy of Louisette Chaslon. Violet Oil Beetle Meloe violaceus (Fr. Meloe violet), mating. Male is below, female above. He is eating a buttercup stem, one of their favourite foods. These beetles are the object of some conservation concern as their numbers are declining.   Marie-Claude ..read more

Steamed green asparagus. At the end of April and the beginning of May, asparagus is the flagship product on people's plates at home and in restaurants. This year, because of the weather, producers are expecting a bumper crop. Locally produced white asparagus at the market. The epitome of seasonal produce, asparagus features on the shelves between April and June. In Indre et Loire one finds Touraine asparagus, especially grown around Bourgueil and Richelieu. The label 'Coeur de Touraine' is the most prized, only held by 17 producers around Richelieu, who produce between 200 ..read more

The Touraine Loire Valley is home to some impressively large land snails and slugs. This Yellow Cellar Slug Limacus flavus (Fr. Limace des caves) and its family live in our kitchen. They are nocturnal, so we rarely see them. For scale, the tiles are 20 cm². I encounter Ash-black Slugs Limax cinereoniger (Fr. Grande limace) in the larger well established forests. They can be pale and stripey like this one...  ...or they can be charcoal grey with a pale grey dorsal ridge. Red Slugs Arion rufus (Fr. Grande loche) can be encountered anywhere -- in the forest, on waste ground, in gardens ..read more

In September last year the church of Saint Ours got struck by lightning and the east belltower was damaged. Since then it has been swathed in a maze of scaffolding and the town authorities, who own the building, are getting ready to repair it. The project will cost a quarter of a million euros, which is half the town's annual heritage buildings conservation budget. Some years ago I had alerted the local swift conservation association SOS Martinets that there was a swift colony that nested in the roof and crevices in the walls of the church. So naturally they were very concerned when scaffold ..read more

Several years ago we had the opportunity at Chateauroux to see and get on board the last French DC3 that is still airworthy. Like 70 others of its kind at the time in the mid-20th century, this plane crisscrossed the skies, wearing the livery of Air France.   The Douglas DC-3 (Dakota) that took part in the Normandy invasion, then saw service with Air France. It was built in 1943 and participated in the Normandy Invasion of June 1944. Its job was to tow gliders and carry parachutists. Then in August 1944 it was down south, for the Allied landings in Provence. After the War and with Germa ..read more

Finistere is in the north-west of France, part of Brittany, and around the small port of Roscoff in Finistere they grow onions. The 'oignon de Roscoff' (Roscoff onion) has the French/European geographical protection certificate AOC, meaning to be marketed as the famous Roscoff onion the onions must have been produced in a certain limited geographical area around Roscoff. The story goes that a monk who had spent time in Portugal brought the distinctive sweet pink onions back with him in the 17th century. He taught the nuns at the Convent of Roscoff how to cultivate them. Later Roscoff's proxi ..read more

In all the excitement of our salon and bedroom being insulated we've almost forgotten that today is the anniversary of our double glazing being installed. The new windows made a much bigger difference than we had expected - evidence, I think, of how bad the old windows were. The reduction of noise inside the house, lack of rattles, and absence of drafts has been really noticeable. We're too far past winter for the insulation to really show its effects, but we're hoping that this coming summer the house will remain comfortable for longer 'if' we have a heatwave. The house still isn't complete ..read more