It’s hot. Very hot. So hot that Meteo-France has issued an orange ‘vigilance météorologique’ for a number of departments, including the Allier, telling us to “Ne sortez pas aux heures les plus chaudes (11h-21h)” and to “Limitez vos activités physiques”
Bummer. Can’t go out between 11am and 9pm, and can’t do any physical work. Ha! Quel dommage. I’ll just have to sit inside in the cool (26C) and mess about on t’internet all day then.
Which is pretty much what I have been doing since around midday. In my defence I will add that I did a big, fat load of outside work between 6.30 and 12.00, including a very thorough attack with blunt shears on the nettles, brambles and spiky saplings that have infested the plum tree area next to the electric fence (that keeps Lenny from attacking the dogs when they are out cavorting ridiculously in their pen).
Meteo-France has also issued an orange warning about the possibility of exceptionally violent storms in this area, which inspired Simon to construct a bit of much needed vegetable scaffolding. I think my question about whether he had decided on a low-growing, rambling variety of tomato this year added to his motivation. Simon is of course either an Englishman or a Mad Dog. He somehow ended up doing his gardening during the early afternoon, flying recklessly in the face of all sensible advice (unlike clever, cool-as-a-really-quite-warm-cucumber me). But the tomatoes and the broad beans are now standing proudly to attention, supported by the most wondrous construction of carefully chosen hazel branches. It is very gratifying to have ready access to an endless supply of wood for all-sorts-of-purposes.
Anyway. That’s the sort of day it’s been. And my canicule-enforced confinement to the house has given me the opportunity to sort through our huge collection of photographs to make an album of a year’s worth of pictures of the hay field just across the lane, which is what greets my bleary eyes in the morning, when I take the dogs for their first walk of the day.
It may be simply a field and some trees, with some sky above it, but it is beautiful in so many ways….
