Jane Aston, painter.

Chatillon en Bazois

Here's where I went today. I've driven many times through Chatillon, having needed to travel towards George's kids every holidays. My main interests in Chatillon in the past were the Chateau with it's wartime bullet wounds, the metal beds piled up in a building level with the road, the Roulottes you can stay in, the canal and the cake shop. George's kids are now sophisticated train traveller's with Wifi. They love going via Paris on the trains travelling at speed with chocolate muffins. Nowadays we are slow travellers on bicycles through Chatillon. We drove to Alluy through Moulin Engilbert where I noticed my friend has just obtained a shop to sell his art.
We pass a tiny bar , open all day and into the night perhaps, unspecified hours. A real dusty bend in the road nowhere place to have a bar next to a redundant church. I went in once to ask directions to the advertised Limanton Brocante. I was told the brocante was actually in Pannecotte pronounced 'Pan Sow'. I remember thinking oh no sounds like 'cancelled' but then realising too she was talking about the next village that I used to call 'pan knee cotty', not anymore. I glanced around the bar and clocked that the place looked like it's not changed at all for a 100 years. I have dreamed about returning ever since.
On drinking I just want to mention how civilised we are here in Burgundy. We drink tiny glasses of white wine called Aligoté
Aligoté refers to the grape the wine comes from. In my mind it has become a style of drinking. Tiny sherry like glasses of chilled wine at unspecified times like at 11am while otherwise a coffee would be the thing. I have been at the first day of the month markets and spotted red faced country men delicately drinking thimble glasses of wine. Pace.
.If you do find yourself in one of those peculiar places, a bar in the morning thinking I might order a coffee but doing the opposite and asking for a tiny thing of wine. The phrase here is a 'Blanc sur le comptoir' or in England 'Hair of the Dog' suggests the same idea. For the day after the night before. Here though a house wine is actually pretty decent. Not a bit of old vinegar and white wine is cheaper than anything else.
We giggled a bit today as we passed an old railway stop at Brinay. There was a pretty small building beside the old station stop now a house with big letters saying Brinay over it. The little mini me building said Hommes in big letters and I pressume the otherside said Dames. A loo!

Spooky looking nobbled, pollarded trees. We are having lovely warm weather but no leaves to spy anywhere. Every garden either has Forsythia or Japonica occasionally an ornamental cherry and there are some beautiful Magnolias.

Back streets, love the back views of building and a spray of Forsythia.

Le Couvent. A lot of work going on here. It looks interesting as a place to stay with the front facing towards the canal our cycle artery.

I'd love a greenhouse like one of these. No glass here. As a child I played in a greenhouse like this. I helped paint one in spring aged 4. Around my neck my constant friend was a camera with a concertina lens I remember the paint splattered camera. I seemed to be acutely aware of details like tiny Forget me nots. So when I see a greenhouse like this I am back with an intense smell of tomatoes.

Near the basin at Chatillon.

This was on the way between Moulin Engilbert and Alluy.

I have been back and forth from the Marie chasing my Carte Vitale. Cats looking a bit thin looking for lizards.

They are helping at the Marie.

The boat is still here. There was a lovely dog sleeping right beside the boat. George gave it a bit of a scare on his bike and it barked a bit but by the time arrived it recovered itself and just wagged it's tail at me.