Written
9th and 10th July 2019
Fortunately, the ‘canicule’ heatwave has passed (for
now), so we have taken advantage of the cooler mornings (around 20-22) to drive
the 1½ hrs to Guedelon, where a medieval castle is being built from scratch,
entirely by hand in the medieval manner.
It was a beautiful sunny day and we drove on almost traffic-free
roads between fields of golden cereal crops awaiting harvest.
For mile after mile the road rose and fell over
rolling hills in dead straight lines (thank you the Romans). With national
speed limits set at 80kmh (50mph) and even 70 (42mph) in places, we had time to
take in the unbroken views of rural Burgundy as far as the eye could see.
A couple of small villages broke up the journey, most
with a stately ‘Mairie’ (Town Hall) flying the French tricolour from the
balcony, the boulangerie, tabac, and even a café or two in the town square – a rarer
sight now, unfortunately, in these difficult times for the French economy.
Having arrived at Guedelon at around 12.00, I became
very French and joined the queue for food in the outdoor restaurant with dozens
of other visitors from France and all over the world. Within minutes I was
eating boeuf bourgignon with carrots and potatoes and swilling this down with
apple juice from a producer in the Forêt d’Othe woodland, close to St.Flo. Sue
and Laddie opted for the bread and cheese plate only (3 small pieces of cheese
and some heavy bread for only 3€ less than mine)
The visitor is free to walk round this large site with
buildings (built to match the theme) housing various workshops for the
blacksmith, the ropemaker, the dyer, the roof and floor tile producers etc.
The raw materials are all in view – rocks in the
quarry, the clay pit, the felled timbers awaiting cutting into roof beams and
finer moulding etc.
Giant wheels in which, like a hamster, one man walks
to work the pulley to raise massive blocks of stone up to the battlements are
now almost redundant as, after 20 years or more, the building approaches its
final stages.
By the time we left, the temperature had risen to 26ºC
and we headed back to St.Flo by another equally beautiful route, for Laddie to
plunge gratefully into the cool water of the marina while we put the kettle on
for the inevitable 5pm cup of tea so as not to disappoint our local friends,
horrified to see us with a hot drink a) in the heat and b) at that time of day!
Cold G+T and beers were to follow later!
A good day out for less than €40 including
food !
Snippets of French Life
The ‘O’ level exams (brevet) took place in the first
week of July. The individual results of each local candidate were published in
the local paper today 10th July in alphabetical order. How’s that
for fast marking! They’re all on their 8
weeks holiday now! All 4116 of them in our department of the Yonne (89).
The grass is tinder dry with lack of rain and wild
fires are happening daily. 15 appliances and 40 firemen attended one yesterday
when 47 cars were burned out. They were parked in a field while the owners
attended a children’s sports event. 400 kids were evacuated.
Our local paper reports that firemen were called out
585 times in the last 8 days, mainly to crop fires in wheat and barley fields.
8 road deaths in 10 days locally have prompted one
grieving father to complain about the rows of solid plane trees which have
graced France’s country roads since Napoleonic days and have become a classic
part of the French image.
Young drivers are dying every week here (as elsewhere)
whether due to drugs, alcohol or mobile phones, but certainly not due to plane
trees jumping out in front of them.
Drought has been declared and water levels are falling leading to travel restrictions on some canals with groupage necessary to go through the locks. No rain is forecast so so we are not moving for the moment but we have been invited on to our friends much larger boat from the 20th July to spend two weeks over near the Loire where hopefully it will be navigable and less busy.
Will keep you posted as this develops.
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