Hot

The thermometer on the dashboard was reading 32.5° as we returned from the market around 11:00 am, so I expect it'll get up over 35° this afternoon.  We've just heard on the village tannoy us that the Prefect has decreed that cars may not be washed, private swimming pools may not be filled and lawns may not be watered.  We had thought of giving the car a wash, since we're unlikely to be allowed across the Swiss frontier if we present it in its present state, which bears witness to dusty roads, swifts and house martins.  The dignity of the announcement was slightly dented by the musical accompaniment: Madame D. at the Mairie played two snippets of a brass band recording of the Marseillaise, then switched to a mawkish soprano rendering of it (recorded, not singing it herself, which would have been a lot more fun), and spoke over the singing.  Bet she wasn't standing to attention either. 

We had planned to go to the seaside today for lunch, but unfortunately the decorating and furniture shifting has taken its toll: I have one of my rare acute backaches, which isn't helped by winding bumpy roads and getting in and out of the car.  So we shall lunch on delicious melon and jambon cru at home.  We shall be stuck in the car enough in the coming days anyway. I think the back is easing a little through gentle exercise and rest.  Not sure ibuprofen and paracetamol have any effect other than the unintended nausea.  [German puts it so spectacularly well: unerwünschte Arzneimittelwirkungen.]

Social life is pleasant.  We met some other British visitors to the village while watching the rather fine fireworks show on 13 July (since there's a big show in Carcassonne on the 14th, our village does its show the night before the holiday.)  Said visitors, whom we'd met once before at Kate and John's, asked us for drinks at their place on Sunday, and we retaliated here yesterday.  The ever-increasing coincidences ever increase: not only do they live less than 15 miles from where I was brought up, but Karen even worked in BTI in the same building as I back in the late 1980s.  The evening finished with a few hands of cards: Uno, which is their daughters' favourite at the moment: great fun.  Today's apéritifs may be more restrained: we're hoping Beverly will come round, and a local Brit painter, Josef.  Probably our last socialising in the village this time: we're off on Friday.