I stupidly mentioned kindly weather last time round - well that will teach me! Last Sunday was hot and the temperatures just kept rising on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I was on mowing duty on Monday and had to do that in the morning to keep it reasonable. Tuesday evening aperos were in the garden and 31ºC at 7pm, so of course when it broke on Wednesday, it went with a bang! There were reports of tornados, hours of sheet lightening and heavy rain Wednesday to Thursday, and I saw the damage as I drove the roads round Rillé on Friday. It was still hot and sticky though, so more showers, more storms, more humidity. Yesterday that culminated in a storm front that went across France causing havoc. We were lucky, but St Nicholas de Bourgeuil lost its church spire to a tornado, while the floods in Saumur and towns near Paris and Reims were extraordinary.
Yesterday was market day, and as I had company and the terraces are open, we took the opportunity to stop at one of the cafés around the market to have a drink and watch the world go by. I am used to watching sparrows scavenge around under tables, but it was the first time I've seen a chaffinch do that. If you are reading this on a computer or tablet, it is worth looking closely at the third photo - I'm rather proud of that one!
This morning, after paying homage to the Cats in the Country, we went to the open day at l'Or de la Ruche - a professional bee keeper and purveyor of honey, where there was also an exhibition on Asian hornets and how to trap them, and a bit of a producers' market too. It was a lovely little event, no face masks as there was plenty of space to spread out, and yet enough people to let you think life might return to normal one day.
This afternoon we went out to a Brocante - O, how daring and how wonderful! We were on a mission as the Chinon One would like a footstool for his birthday next week, and this seemed a likely place - a huge warehouse at Beaufort en Vallée. Bizarrely, footstools were not plentiful. There were bar stools, milking stools, coffee tables and a camel saddle, but just one footstool - rather modern and with a not very nice cover, but at 10€, something of a bargain, even if we are going to recover it. It seems to do what was required anyway. We did find another option as well - an old barley twist chair that has certainly seen better days, and the back struts are badly split. But take off the back, cover the sawn off bits with a bit of foam and new fabric, add the missing stretcher, give it a good polish, and the chair will make a rather fine and unique foot stool as well.
Until next week!
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