France 2013 Chapter 21

You could all be completely forgiven for thinking we had turned into hermits overnight! Apart from some activity at the beginning of the week, getting the family organised for their departure just after lunch on Tuesday, we have hardly moved out of the house all week. The temperatures which had been hovering around the 32 degree mark, mercifully dropped on Sunday to a more acceptable 25 degrees but we still didn’t venture out. It seems that after the persistent cold of the first part of our stay, followed by the never-ending rain, we have now moved into relentless heat which, accompanied by high humidity, has pretty much beaten us into submission and momentarily subdued our adventurous, sight-seeing spirit. Today is actually Bastille Day, an important date in the French calendar but although there must have been all sorts of festivities going on in various centres around us last night, probably ending with a fireworks display, we just hadn’t the energy to go and find one

We did, however, learn the true value of shutters on the windows. With the shutters closed against the heat, the windows can still be kept open and will provide a little air movement. Up until now we have always closed them at night instead of drawing the curtains, but then, I don’t remember being here and experiencing this kind of heat before. With the extreme heat, we have a plague of flies in spite of there not being any large stock farms around us. After slapping at them with a fly swatter, somewhat ineffectively, for a while, we gave in and went off to buy some of those dreadful fly papers. These come as small cylinders with a cap on each end and when you remove the caps the paper unrolls into a long sticky strip complete with drawing pin with which to attach it to the ceiling. Neels, having grown up on a farm had used these before and showed me a good trick. Before opening and unrolling the paper, the cylinder should be rolled between one’s palms to warm it slightly. This softens the glue and the paper unrolls smoothly. They are not the most attractive bits of interior decoration but are unbelievably effective. We now have three hanging around in the main living area and have practically given up using the fly swatter.

So, apart from that fascinating gem of useless information, I have simply nothing to write about this week and of course, no photographs either. Hopefully next week will be better.