Pete and I drove across to Guédelon (in the département Yonne) on Sunday, to spend a week as battiseurs volontaires. The drive there includes a long high strentch of road that is practically straight, between Le Mans and Orléans. Occasionally there are a few hundred yards of the huge old plane trees that used to flank most French country roads, but are now quite rare. They are very impressive, if a bit of a collision risk.
We came across these ancient pollarded plane trees on the banks of the Loire, south of Orléans. Despite the recent torrential rain, the river is still very low.
Anyway, we got to our allocated caravan in the campsite near Guédelon just before the heavens opened again, this time with a smashing thunderstorm. Thank goodness we had decided not to camp or we would have been washed away.
Day 1 as battiseurs, Pete did stone cutting and had a ball - proved to be very adept and fast, but took no photos! I ended up in the tile-making workshop again, but this time we were making encaustic floor tiles, rather than roof tiles.
Sebastien was rushed to grind enough kaolin small enough to make into the slip that we use to fill the imprints in the tiles.
These are damp tiles with the pattern stamped into them, using a carved wooden stamp. Below, I'm filling them up with contrasting coloured slip. Once dry, they are scraped flat, which reveals the clear pattern. Bit of a process, but they had lots of time and labour in the 13th century!
Today Pete carried on stonecutting (he got to do a curved piece - very advanced!) I got a chance to try making rope. What really caught my eye was the knife that the cordier uses - made by the forgerons on the site. I think it is really beautiful!
Below are three pictures of the 'chariot' used to make ropes. Today we were making the ceintures that all the battiseurs wear. I learned to make these (though we used bought-in hemp) from scratch, including two types of splices, or epissures.
Very enjoyable day all round, another huge thunderstorm and monsoon-like rain at lunchtime, but now the sky is clearing and the temperature has risen perceptibly. Day off tomorrow, so we will do some tourist-y stuff in the area.
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