Bonjour,
Hope you had a good week.
Here we’ve had every sort of weather except snow.
Thunderstorms, hail stones, blazing sunshine and torrential rain – almost every day it’s been like this. The whole of France seems to have had this strange weather, with apparently three times the normal number of storms for May. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it might lead to a dry summer as my renovation work has had to come to a halt. Wall and shutter painting and concrete mixing don’t go well with rain.
Everyone always thinks that the Brits are obsessed with the weather more than any other race. But the French are just as bad. Jean-Claude remarked on Tuesday, as we passed him while walking our soggy dogs, drips hanging from our hair and clothes, he standing under his porch, surveying the rain gushing down the hill outside his house: “bit wet today”. I had to agree.
On Wednesday, there he was, wiping his feet on an old towel about to go into his little cottage. Mrs J-C is very house proud and woe betide anyone who makes a mark on the floor. “Bit wet today” he said, “and humid”. I’ll say. It said on the news that we had 91% humidity, it was more like being in the jungle than in a northern French hamlet.
I expect you know what he said on Thursday and Friday. “Still raining! Did you hear that thunder last night?” (Thursday). Friday’s offering was “bit wet today, it’s supposed to be nicer tomorrow”. And then he added, being an optimist, “it can’t get any worse”. Hmmm, I thought to myself, well, yes it could actually, we could have a repeat of the giant hail stones that hit the village last year.
The French are very like the British who constantly express their disbelief at: 1. How wet it is; 2. how cold it is; 3. how hot it is; 4. how dry it is. And then talk about it all the time.
I have become obsessed with looking at Meteo France weather forecasts for my area. I check several times a day to see if anything has changed. Every day this week it has had little pictures of dark clouds for storms and orange zig zags to represent lightning. What actually happened was more like thunder, lightning, rain, sun, rinse and repeat. The forecast might just as well read: Everything.
Where ever you are, whatever the weather, I wish you a very bon weekend,
Bisous from France,
Janine
Editor
ps Photo is a rainy day in Chateauneuf-en-Auxois by Don Knipfer
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