09 August 2006

C'est sec. Archi-sec...

How dry is it in France? It's so dry... that the water level in the little pond out behind our back yard was getting pretty low — despite the good rains we got in late July. August has been very dry too, so far, though not hot at all. I feels almost like fall, but without rain.


The pond got really low last year too and the town authorities did then what they have just done again. They hired a man with a tractor and a big tank to go fill it with water out of the Cher and come dump it in our pond. He must have made half a dozen or more trips yesterday and today. Now the pond is back up to its normal level.


I think the reason for the authorities' concern is that the water in the pond is a reserve to be used for fire-fighting. Let's hope it doesn't get dry enough for fire to become a real danger. This drought has lasted at least two years now.

It was hot and dry for most of July, with some thunderstorms and rains late in the month. Then the weather suddenly turned much cooler as August rolled in. A weather forecaster on the radio this morning said the only strange thing about the weather changing the way it did was that it happened right as July ended and August began.

The radio announcer who was interviewing him said that the people who are on vacation in August (les aoûtiens) are much luckier than the people who took vacations in July (les juillettistes) were. They're having better weather.

I find that hard to understand. If you were on vacation and at the beach, wouldn't you be happier to have temperatures in the high 80s and low 90s with bright sun, rather than temperatures in the low to mid-70s and cloudy skies? For Parisians, I understand. But French people don't spend their vacations in Paris.

2 comments:

  1. We are having similar dry weather in the south of England, but the cooler temperature is very refreshing after the exhausting heat of July. Harrods are putting on sale their christmas baubles, perhaps we go straght from July to December, as our winters are no longer cold. I havent worn an overcoat for several years.
    Not allowed to use hosepipes for a month, we carry water daily for the birds, toads, insects, urban foxes, here in suburban London gardens. But the roadside trees are dying, chestnut leaves look diseased, brown, curling and falling. It is very scary.
    Magda

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  2. That is scary. So far the vegetation here seems to be holding its own. We did have about 60 mm of rain in late July. But we need more. Nobody has told us that we can't water our garden and other plantings, but we do it sparingly.

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