Here's a column, or part of one, on one of the many local, and lesser known, châteaux in our region. Which one? I'm not sure. I'll get back to you. Maybe... Ok, did it. I believe it's the Château de Troussay.
Another ten degree morning. Outside. I think I'll need a scarf and a knit cap when I go out for the morning walk. Brrr!
From deep in the archives: a group of guys playing football (soccer in the US) in Vouvray. It dates from before we moved to France. We were staying close by in a vacation rental home.
I saw the "Strawberry Moon" last night as it rose and again this morning as it set. I'm sure it's being packed up for storage as tonight's "Friday the 13th Moon" is being unpacked. You know, WIWAK (When I was a kid), we had only one moon, with the possible exception of the occasional blue moon (where things only happen once) and the harvest moon. Shine on. Still, I'm sure it was all the same moon.
This is a view of the organ at the church of Saint-Pierre in the Loire Valley city of Saumur. We visited a few places in that area with our late friend CHM that summer in 2006.
The warm-up has come. Temperatures are in the mid-teens (celsius), but not for long. The wind has died down, and rain is predicted to move in as the temperatures start to drop again (probably not below zero). Our yard is covered with dead leaves and downed branches (nothing serious) around the bases of trees and in the driveway and the garden path. I'd like to deal with those one of these days. Maybe today, if it's dry enough.
The forecasters say it will be warm today with a high of around 18ºC (about 64ºF). We'll be out of the single digits, at least for now. I'll take it. It's been pretty cold these past few days.
We're making plans for our annual Thanksgiving meal. Not that there's much to do. We have most of the fixin's on hand. One of us will head across the river on Monday or Tuesday to order our traditional gigot d'agneau (leg of lamb). We've decided to ask the butcher to bone the leg, then roll it and tie it into a roast. It's something we've had done before because it makes the leg easier to roast and carve. Stay tuned!
This ornately carved capital is part of the Château de Troussay. In architectural speak, a capital is the uppermost part of a column. Although, in this case, this may not even be a column. It could be what's called an "engaged" column. That is, a structural column embedded in the wall behind it. But most likely it's what's called a pilaster, a decorative element in a wall that's meant to resemble an engaged column.
Enough pedantry for one day! Today is a transition day. The cool, wet weather system is moving off and temperatures are expected to rise through the weekend. I've got some more grass cutting in my future, if it stays dry.
This is the courtyard side of the Château de Troussay. The two façades of the building actually have names. Yesterday's post featured the façade "Louis XII." Today's features the façade "François I." The names refer to the architectural styles of the two façades.
Rain is moving in this morning. Conveniently (not), it should be raining quite heavily as the sun comes up, right when I usually go out with Tasha. It will be a short walk this morning. It's supposed to rain most of the day, and this morning's normally low temperature is predicted to be the high for the day. Fall begins this weekend, and it looks like it's getting an early start.
Not far from Cheverny and its famous château is a much less famous Loire Valley castle: Troussay. Construction started on the building in the mid-fifteenth century, but the building's current form dates from the Renaissance, with another significant addition in the eighteenth century.
The castle is privately owned and lived-in, but visitors are allowed, for a modest fee, in some of the ground-floor rooms and in the adjacent garden and park. It's worth a stop if you're in the area and a nice change from the grander, more crowded châteaux.
Here we are back at the church in Cunault. I'm out of new photos. Monday brought a mid-day thunderstorm, so the weather has been a little damp. It's not really cold, and it's not hot, either. It feels like fall.
This week is a medical week. I have an appointment for the biennial blood work on Wednesday, then an appointment on Friday with the doctor for my semi-annual prescription renewal. All routine stuff. I hope.
Back to the church in Cunault. The building's architecture contains elements of the romanesque and gothic styles.
Ken and I started stacking firewood yesterday. It was a good start, but we have a long way to go. I'm hopeful that we'll get it done by the end of the weekend.
I thought that this was the front door of the church at Cunault. It turns out that it's a side door, under the steeple and opposite the organ, which is in the southern transept. The church's transepts are not deep at all. I don't have any exterior shots (why not, I wonder), but from looking at the internet and street view in Google maps, I can see that it's a side door and not the main western entrance.
Our heat wave continues and it looks like it'll be here through the weekend. I'm thinking of cutting some grass today, but I may not. It's kind of stopped growing anyway, but once we have some rain it'll pick up again. The vegetable garden has definitely slowed down. I think the zucchini plants are on their last legs. I keep watering anyway.
Here's a wider view of the pipe organ at Cunault. It's not the biggest, nor is it the most ornate that I've seen. But for this church, it seems just right.
Thank goodness for low humidity. Otherwise, we'd be miserable. The dry air makes the heat more bearable. And the heat is expected to continue. Yesterday morning, just after sunrise, I noticed that the sky had a hazy yellow cast. I think that must be caused by Saharan sand blowing up from down south.
In this shot (pun intended), they look like gun barrels, but they're really just organ pipes. They're part of the amazing pipe organ in the church at Cunault.
It's hot, as predicted, and dry. At least the mornings are cool. I took advantage yesterday to move two piles of kindling out from under the tall cedar tree. I also sent an email to the landscape guy asking if we could schedule the tree's removal. The whole upper half is dead. I haven't heard anything yet; it usually takes a few days for him to respond.
Today is la rentrée scolaire, the day kids in primary and secondary schools head back to class. I've never really figured out the French school system. I know there is l'école (roughly equivalent to American elementary school) and collège (roughly equivalent to American junior high or middle school), then lycée (roughly equivalent to American high school). But the details of how many years a student spends in each of the levels, and what each year within those levels is specifically called, escape me. Probably because I don't have children in school (or anywhere else).
I got the birch branch logs that I cut up moved off the lawn and to the general log pile. It took about four wheelbarrow trips, maybe five. Now I have two piles of kindling to move. Maybe this morning before it gets too hot.
On our day trip through Saumur with friend CHM, we visited the church at Cunault on the Loire River. CHM knew the church and thought we'd enjoy seeing it. Indeed, we did. So the next few posts will contain some of the photos I took on that visit.
Saturday was a very pleasant day, weather-wise. Today it's supposed to get hot -- mid 30sC. And today is the last day of the official school vacation. The kids go back to class on Monday. Traffic moving north (toward Paris) will likely be heavy today.
The central bridge in Saumur is this arched masonry bridge called Cessart. It connects the city center on the left bank with an island in the Loire River, l'île d'Offard. I identified that island as Millocheau yesterday, but Wikipedia tells me that Millocheau, formerly an island off the western point of Offard, is now connected to the larger island and is therefore no longer an island in its own right. There's another bridge between the island and the river's right bank called the Pont des Cadets de Saumur. I can't find anything about the name of the bridge in the photo's background except that it carries route D347 across the river. And that's more than you wanted to know about Saumur's bridges.
If my favorite (although not always accurate) weather site is correct, the next few days are going to be hot. As high as 36ºC (close to 97ºF) on Monday. Yikes! We shall see.
Here's the downstream shot to counter yesterday's upstream shot. It was just a matter of turning around. The château is visible on the left. The arched bridge connects the city center on the left bank of the Loire with the Ile Millocheau (right) and further to the train station on the right bank (not visible in this photo).
I made some progress in the yard yesterday by cutting up that pile of birch branches under the big cedar tree. Now I have to move them to the larger log pile next to the house. We've ordered a bunch of firewood for the winter and that's being delivered on the eleventh. As usual, it'll get dumped in the driveway and Ken and I will have to stack it ourselves. That could take a couple of days, depending on the weather and how well our backs hold up.
With the château at my back, I'm looking up the Loire River in this shot. An interesting looking railroad bridge crosses the valley not far away. The dome you can see on the right is the Chapelle Notre-Dame-des-Ardilliers de Saumur.
I hate to keep harping on the weather. Well, I guess I don't, really. Our mornings are quite chilly, very fall-like. And this past week, the days have not warmed up much. We're wearing cold weather clothes in the house. But there's hope for this end of summer. The forecast is for more summer-like weather as we get into the weekend. That's good for me. There's grass to be mowed and firewood (those downed birch branches) to cut up.
The day we visited Saumur back in 2006, we didn't visit the château itself. Apart from a brief photo stop in the castle's parking lot. The views out over the Loire were pretty nice. I took more photos of the view than of the castle.
I've never, in fact, visited the inside of the Saumur castle. That's strange, since I've been inside our other local châteaux numerous times. One of these days...
Back in the summer of 2006, after Collette died, but before Callie came to live with us, we had a lot of visitors, mostly from the US. Our friend CHM was among them. While he was here, we took a drive over to the city of Saumur on the Loire River and had a leisurely lunch in town.
I'm trying to remember what we ate, but I can't. It was seventeen years ago, after all. I do remember that Ken had something that he didn't like as much as he thought he would. He'll remember what it was. Since covid, we haven't had visitors nor have we ventured out for lunch. I did go out to lunch in Paris last March, but that was the first time I had ventured up to Paris since 2018.
We're lucky that we both like to cook and that we have a nice terrace to hang out on in the summer months. We do have a little trip planned later this fall, just a few days in a relatively close part of France that neither of us has been to. Something to look forward to!
Another shot from inside the chapel at the Château de Chambord. I really liked the colors in this scene.
My dental procedure yesterday couldn't have gone better. Well, it could have, in that the tooth did not want to come out. At first, the doctor was optimistic. He thought he could pull the tooth in one piece. But it was a stubborn little devil. He ended up having to cut it in two. After that it came out fine.
Then the implant went in and the doctor sewed up part of the gum and it was all over. I felt absolutely no pain, just a little pressure during the extraction. After it was done, I got treated to some luminothérapie. Light therapy. Twelve minutes of exposure to bright light (with eye protection, of course) to facilitate the jaw bone's healing. Ken said it sounded like hocus pocus but, if nothing else, it got me to sit still quietly, at least for twelve minutes. It felt like I was out sitting in the sun. No sign of tanning.
So now I'm on a somewhat steady diet of paracétamol (acetaminophen) for a few days. The only thing I feel is a little soreness. I have some eating restrictions for a couple of days, some special mouthwash, and an ultra soft post-op toothbrush for the first few brushings of the extraction site. The implant is capped for now, but the cap will come off on Thursday when I get a temporary crown installed. Then it's a three month wait for the bone to heal before the permanent crown goes in.
All in all, it was a very positive experience. I suffered more in anticipation than I did in the dentist's chair.
And, on the humorous side, I asked one of the staff about the "no alcohol" restriction. I wanted to know when I could start drinking wine again. Don't worry, she said, wine isn't "alcohol." Then she yelled across the bustling reception area to the doctor in his office, "he can have wine, right?" The doctor laughed and yelled back "of course! Avec plaisir!" You gotta love France.
