Puisaye

We spent the today taking a gentle tour round some of the very pretty villages and countryside of Puisaye.  This part of France is renowned for its pottery, mainly stoneware, or grès and there are pottery workshops and exhibitions all over the place. Starting from St Sauveur en Puisaye, where we are staying, we dropped into Poterie la Batisse and saw a 17th century kiln, which got through 40 stères (1 stère = 1 cubic meter) of firewood per firing - thats about one articulated lorry worth!
After a relaxed lunch and wander around St Fargeau, we headed down to St Amand-en-Puisaye, which looked promising, but was full of empty, boarded-up shops.

We then headed east towards Treigny, and came across this beautiful little château-fort, called le Château de Ratilly (http://www.chateauderatilly.fr/), a seriously pretty place, which is owned by a couple whose parents bought it in the 1950s to run as (yet another) pottery.

 The terracotta roof tiles round here seem to collect vast quantities of moss if they are at all shaded...

The leftmost front corner tower is a pigeonnier, with an amazing rotating ladder to raid the pigeon-holes that line the walls.

 It has a pretty courtyard, that improved as the sun came out.
We continued into Treigny, another picturesque village and saw this polite notice on a garage:

 (I would like to be able to get my car in and out, thankyou) A nice touch.
They are also kind to horses, providing them with nose-height drinking troughs with hitching rings.

The weather continues to improve, now sitting in the sun, drinking a beer and contemplating dinner. Hopefully our work at Guédelon for the rest of the week will be in sunshine.