Summer

It tends to get very warm in the late afternoons at the moment - typically around 32°C - but night time temperatures are largely bearable, with a little help from the trusty fan we bought in Colmar back in 2002 (and which probably saved our lives when we went down with food poisoning in Riquewihr).  We had a pleasant, if somewhat over-bibulous, apéro on Wednesday with Peter and Christoff.  They have bought and done up one of the maisons de maître in the middle of the village.  Their living room-kitchen is on the top floor, and one of the two roof terraces (we moved from one to t'other when the temperature dropped enough) offers practically 270° views to the Hautes-Corbières, the Abbey and the Cagalière.  They have now left for South Africa again, so we won't get a chance to retaliate until we're all back in September.

Next day we took a ride over the hills to Leucate, where we stopped for lunch at our usual café on the beach, returning via Bages and Narbonne.  At one point some joker on the ex-N9 practically climbed on to our back bumper when I was overtaking at just a little over the speed limit, and proceeded to swerve in and try to put us off the road.  The roadside had its usual sprinkling of scantily-clad ladies of the afternoon.  So we were more than grateful to get off the main road.  Not a flamingo to be seen on the étangs, just egrets (we saw a few...).  The real fun began between Montredon and Villedaigne.  All traffic was being directed off the ex-N113, where there seemed to have been a shunt.  This meant negotiating Névian with its tree-lined streets and traffic-calming chicanes.  This took fully half an hour of stop-start, since trucks have to take to the middle of the road to avoid overhanging branches, and many of the roads have long single lane stretches to slow the traffic down.  Well, they achieved their aim, and then some.

Oleanders and the hire car

The air is clearer today (probably because it's moving pretty fast).  We have been up to Lézigzag for supplies this morning, and were rewarded with good views of the mountains on the way home via Conilhac.  The Canigou was clearly visible, and still has streaks of snow on it.  The fine displays of wild flowers are largely over now, though there are occasional patches of scabious and pyramid orchids, and the broom's long flowering season continues.  The vines seem to have recovered from the freeze that did so much damage in the spring, and of course the wild oats are everywhere.  Our little weed patch is weedier than ever, so I suppose we'll have to tackle that before we leave.  The oleanders are resplendent (not to say thuggish!), and we have already used some of our own sage and mint in the kitchen.  The valerian which moved itself in a year or so ago is in serious need of chopping back, as is the periwinkle, which I nicked some years ago from alongside the irrigation ditch up the valley.

The Rt Hon the Prime Minister seems to be deservedly beleaguered at the moment.  Her vacillating and consequently disastrous campaign, her being forced to seek an unconstitutional alliance in order to cling to power and now her catastrophic failure to show any kind of empathy with the victims of the dreadful fire in N Ken (cf. HM's prompt and compassionate visit) must together surely bring her down.  I don't think she's a bad person.  Indeed, I was quite taken with her humanity when, a while back, she did Desert Island Discs.  No such humanity is showing now: rather, she is showing one grave error of judgement after another, and now looks a bit like a rabbit in the headlights.  The Leader of HM Opposition is making an altogether better fist of things.  If you haven't yet read Toynbee's and Freedland's latest articles in the Grauniad, you should.