The Accordeon and Heritage museum

It has been two years since we were last in Tulle, and at the time they were talking excitedly about the new town accordeon and heritage museum that was being built in an old bank building.   It has been finished, so we went to take a look.  Well worth the visit.

There is an excellent display of the history of accordeon making, plus a more general history of the development of the town.   There is even a real accordeon that you can play (in the vault so no-one outside can hear)

The accordeon and town histories are brought together by the following story:   The town was one of those taken by the military wing of the german national socialists, but was retaken for a while by the resistance.  Retribution followed in the shape of the schutzstaffel who rounded up the menfolk and murdered some 900 of them by stringing them up.   These same thugs went on to Oradour-sur-Glane where they killed the populace by shutting them in the church and setting fire to it.   One of the Tulle residents was taken prisoner and while at Limoges was able to steal back an accordeon made in Tulle, and escape.   This device is exhibited in the museum.

Evening concerts

The accordion festival featured continuous free music on outdoor stages, plus some paid concerts in the theatre.   We went to an indoor one all three nights, they started at 6PM so we could even watch the footie after.

First one, on Friday evening, was by a female group under the name of Oum Pa Pa, who presented very well-played music with a humorous stage show.  There were two flutists with the accordion, they played piccolos as well as the normal C flutes, very well and in tune.   Hard to do.   You can find them on YouTube.

On Saturday there was a pair of musicians, Ablaye Cissoko and Cyrille Brotto who played gentle improvised music on an accordion and a multi-stringed instrument I can't identify.

The last evening, Sunday we had tickets for Théo Ould and his solo show.   Fabulous.  With adaptations of classical music (Rameau, Bach, Shostakovitch), and modern electronic/acousic (Thomas Gubitsch, Régis Compo) pieces, he amazed me.   You can find him on YouTube too.

Accordions at Tulle

We're just back from the accordion festival at Tulle.  We were there in 2022 and had a good time so we went again.   It was less good this year- fewer visitors, and the small groups of musicians travelling about the town centre in various open-top vehicles were almost completely absent.   The local Maugein accordion factory didn't have an open day.  But there were plenty of more formal concerts that we enjoyed, and the new town museum was impressive.

We had lunch on the way down in a quirky restaurant in the middle of nowhere beside the road.  The cars parked outside gave a measure of confidence, so we stopped and checked it out.   The meat was cooked on an open fire, something you don't see very often.    Half of the room was given to dining tables, the other half a car boot sale.   It turned out that the place was for sale; we were two of the four customers present.   Perhaps the cars were a decoy.

Tight rope

One of the entertainments put on in the village this weekend was the "Lonely Circus".   A single guy with a local (Jean-Marc) as a side.   He did slack rope walking, throwing his cap around and catching it with his foot, throwing it onto a water bottle, all while balancing on the slack rope.   At the end he did some leaping about on the tight rope, including standing sideways on it.

He sketched the locals before the performance, and you could keep the sketches if you saw one you liked.  Good fun.   Food and drinks beforehand, music after.   Simple, effective entertainment. Cool.

Fruits rouges

 You know, I don't remember planting this Tayberry, but I seem to have one, and it's making lots of fruit.

A walk in the village

Nothing special, just a few things that caught my eye.

Purin d'orties

Purin is liquid manure, and orties are nettles.  It's supposed to be a really good fertiliser: you can buy it in garden centres, but it's easy enough to make.   Since I have no shortage of nettles around here, I thought I'd give it a go.

I collected up a watering can-full of nettles, then topped it up with water.   According to the instructions, you're supposed to shred the nettles but I didn't bother - I figured that when they all go to mush they'll disintegrate on their own.   You then leave it for a couple of weeks to ferment.   Sure enough, after a week or so there were bubbles on the top, and I mashed the nettles back down into the water.

All the sources say that it smells bad.   It does if you catch a nose full of it, but it's not powerful, just unpleasant.

So once the fermentation had stopped, I took some, diluted it about 10 to 1 and put it on the tomatoes.   They seemed to perk up by the next morning.   I'll be doing some more of that.