home again and shattered

Friday at Guédelon, Florian et  Patrice are setting up the tool to guide the building of the domed roof (une voûte en coupole) of the ground floor tower chamber (la tour des essarteurs, angle sud-est). The stick has a hinged peg on its end, which sits in a hole in the lump of wood, exactly in the centre of the chamber, so it can be rotated and/or lifted, to gauge the distance to any part of the semi-circle dome being built - very neat.

Meanwhile we were continuing the outside part of the wall, with Melanie (in the hat) and Pascal, the maçon in charge of this tower.

At the end of the day, we took a look at the work going on on the top of la tour maîtresse which also gives superb views of the rest of the site. 

 This bit is not open to the public yet, so we were lucky to be able to go up there. 

 As a contrast to the medieval methods we are using, the new visitor centre in the distance (not visible to most visitors) is being constructed using good old 21st century breeze-block.

 The two horses that pull the carts, delivering materials around the site, get a rest and a chance to graze in a paddock at the end of the day. They only work a half-day each, so life is pretty cushy for them!

 View of la tour des essarteurs (where we were working) from la tour maîtresse . 

moi et Pascal (sun direct on my eyes)

Pascal in front of le logis seigneurial just about to go off for a long weekend, leaving us, the next day to mix the week's worth of coarse mortar or chaux de remplisssage used to infill the wall. No cement mixers here...

 Just an hour of back-breaking work

and finally a pile of mortar for the next week.

 So, this is hole the second

 and hole the third, that we managed to complete in two and a half days

 with all the accompanying infill behind.

Surprisingly, we really didn't want to leave!

sunshine!

At last the sun came out and Peter and I spent the day working as maçons. We made a hole...

... quite a deep hole, into which will be placed the échafaudage,  or scaffolding, as the tower rises. This is the right corner tower as you face the front of the château. The walls here are about a meter and a half + thick, so although we didn't increase the surface area much, there's lots of bulk!! (as they say - never mind the quality, feel the width) 

 This is for you, Fran - lovely ironwork! Even the nail-heads are decorated, and each is different.

End of the day - I was determined to get a picture of Pete.
Des res., centre france, will be completed in about 14 years.
Now, cream for the sunburn, ibuprofen for the aches and pains and curry & red wine cos I like it!

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.

Back to Guédelon

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.

New leaves on the trees at last!

We have deliberately planted as many trees as we could find space for in the last ten years. I love the new leaves on the trees as they emerge in spring, so I took a walk round our land when it was sunny, a couple of days ago, and took photos of some of them. 

 This is ginko biloba or maidenhair tree - a present from my sister Gill and her husband Rod.

this is acer platanoides, possibly 'Crimson'King', acquired as a seedling from Bold Venture Park in Darwen (with permission from a friendly gardener)

 this one is a sycamore, acer pseudoplatanus 'Brilliantissimum' - I have missed the early pink of the very new leaves. No idea where it came from.

 these are the bright green new needles of an ex-christmas tree. Norway spruce?

 there are loads of Jay-sown oak seedlings in our tiny patch of woodland. I adore the khaki of the new leaves.

 All our ash seedings are sprouting rapidly - destined to be coppiced for poles and firewood

 more oak

We have one solitary aspen - unfortunately I planted the others where Pete turns the tractor, and he mowed them!  That'll learn me.

 A small-leaved lime

 and some still-folded beech leaves - these are from Bold Venture Park seeds.

 But the hawthorn is well out and flowering its socks off.

 We have pears coming on the pear tree (at last)

 and the apples are blossoming nicely

This is our metasequoia glyptostroboides a deciduous conifer which is enjoying life here in Brittany.

I think this is a western hemlock, (tsuga heterophylla) that I acquired as a tiny seedling in a lay-by in a plantation in Wales (it would have been driven over, sooner or later - honest!). It is entirely unsuitable for a garden, but I love it! It is now in excess of 6 meters tall and growing...

 a pretty bug on some young holly leaves (NB, I want a decent camera one day..). These are from sister Gill's garden

Flowers already on the laburnum that grew from seeds from our next-door-neighbour's tree in Darwen, Lancashire - thanks Mike.

 another ex-christmas tree - some pine or other. Nice tree.

This is a liquidamber - green in spring and summer, but in late autumn has an amazing colour range (see below)

 these willows have lovely yellow-orange stems which glow in the winter sunshine. They were the only trees on the land when we arrived here, apart from the big oaks on the boundaries.

 the cornus kousa is going to flower soon (sorry, rubbish picture)

My pride and joy - a davidia involucrata or handkerchief tree, grown from seed. 10 years old+ but hasn't flowered yet  live in hope!

 The new camellia leaves are like orange patent leather.

but the japanese quince leaves are well-out, and the flowers nearly over. Hopefully another good crop for making jelly.

and finally, a purple-leaved hazel. Perhaps I should do a tree inventory - theres lots more!