Grapes —> raisins

Today is a big holiday in France. This one always falls on August 15, and this year it's a Wednesday. So a lot of people take two other days of the week off, or even all four, to stretch the holiday into a long weekend, or a full week's vacation.

Yesterday morning too many drivers were trying to cross the (narrow) bridge at Saint-Aignan and get to the big zoo (with pandas) near where we live. They faced backups of a mile or longer on at least two roads I traveled. I don't know how long their wait was, because when I got caught in it, I made a U-turn, backtracked, and drove more than 10 miles out of my way to the next bridge over the river and back home from there. I hate sitting in traffic jams...

The grapes above are beautiful, don't you think? They've been protected from the hot sun by being on the east-facing side of the vines and growing under green grape leaves. August 15 is very early for us to be seeing so many ripe-looking grapes around here.

Meanwhile, these bunches obviously didn't make it. The vine they were growing on died (probably from disease, not sunshine), the leaves fell, and the grapes were turned into raisins by the hot sun — burned to a crisp. Quite a few grapes in the vineyard are showing sun damage — just like the local tomatoes.