Que d'eau !

So much rain! That's what my title says in French. It's raining again this morning. We've been in a very wet and windy period since early in December. The rivers are high. Fields are flooded down the road, along the Cher. Rivers to the east of us are also overflowing, and the Seine around Paris is one of them. The ground in the vineyard is squishy.

The Renaudière vineyard, 9 a.m. on Jan. 19, 2018

The rains came a little late this year. I remember that I was dreading them on my blog back in October and November. A month later, we started getting dowsed. If we didn't each have a walk to take with the dog every day, I guess it wouldn't matter so much. Still, all these gray skies when we are living through the shortest days of the year are fairly depressing.

Winter sunrise

The news reported last week that people up in Lille, in the north of France near the Belgian border, had not seen the sun in two months. More rain has fallen in the eastern part of the country than here in the Loire Valley. So we're not the ones suffering the most.

Tasha waiting and watching while I snap a shot

Then, yesterday morning we had sunlight for about two hours. It was amazing. That's when I took these photos. Now that Tasha is well behaved on our walks, and we don't feel like we have to keep her on a leash, my hands are free to hold a camera. It's like we are back to the good old days when we still had Callie.

On the road home after a morning walk

It clouded over yesterday like most days, but it didn't rain. This time of year, we either have warm (for winter), windy, and wet weather. Or we have colder, still, foggy weather. I'm not sure which is worse. Gloomy days, or — as the weather forecasters say — "perturbed" days — you don't get to choose. At least it's not cold. We've had very little, if any, freezing weather so far this winter.