I wouldn't want to be considered one who rubbernecks, but I did feel that if it was from a suitable distance, getting sight of what had happened at St Nicholas de Bourgeuil a couple of weeks ago would be interesting. It didn't disappoint, and on Friday, as I took a different route to Chinon, I was able to stop just below the buildings of la Jarnoterie (many may know this grower) and look across the vineyards to something that might be compared to what Godzilla would do if she visited the area. The village is still blocked off, and quite rightly.
The weather is really not right for this time of year, with sweatshirts not banished to the back of the cupboard, jeans de rigeur much of the time and mushrooms! Further south, friends have found cèpes. Yesterday we found three different varieties in the Garden - none of them convincing for eating purposes, but wrong at the beginning of July.
There are also the things that you would expect from this time of year - lovely banks of lavender humming with bees and hawkmoths, peacock butterflies on the buddleia and marbled whites on the wild scabious. Our nascent herbaceous border has lots of bee friendly flowers out now as well as hidden shrubs and rampant weeds - actually it is hard to distinguish it from the surrounding weeds as it has been too wet to get a mower in there to define the edges.
Of course July in France is all about la grande boucle - the Tour de France - and today they are up in the mountains with an uphill finish at Tignes. I downloaded the Tour de France app this lunchtime and am impressed by it. But now I must go and watch the utter pain and ultimate glory of an uphill finish!
Until next week!
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