July - the month where anything below 25ºC feels cool enough to make wearing jeans and socks an option. Of course we do get cold, damp spells (today for example), but in the main, July is about watering plants, eating fresh produce and the Comité des Fêtes' Diner Champêtre.
Watering has taken on epic proportions this year. The pots in the garden and on the terrace by the front door require doing once a day, some need twice a day when we have very hot temperatures, and with the second half of July, I sometimes wonder why I bother? Except that the lilies that are now fading have bulbs that need to build up stocks of energy to put on another amazing display next year. Among the annuals, the sunflowers tend to be the star performers. This single flower specimen is rather fabulous.
From the same batch of seed (about 10 I purloined from an oil seed sunflower in a field by a friend's gite), another produced multiple flowers, so you never can tell!
The vegetable patches need more water in volume and nearly every day too. The courgettes are producing 6 or 7 new fruits on average per day, and if I miss one, I end up with a marrow for the chickens in no time! Today we ate the first of the yellow miniature plum/pear tomatoes, which I failed to photograph before we tucked in, and I picked the first ripe chilli of the season. We even have a couple of small and nearly ripe pumpkins - I'll not pick them for another week or so to ensure maximum sweetness.
The middle of July also brings the village Diner Champêtre, food, music, dancing and fireworks on the first Saturday after the Fête Nationale. While we have been planning it for months, the first signs on the ground are on the Friday when the first marquees, the dance floor and the stage are erected by different teams through the day.
During the day on Saturday, tables and benches, fridges and beer pumps, cooking materials and supplies are brought in so that when the volunteers start to gather at 5pm, there is enough to do while also reorganising what has been done to date, and having multiple goes at deciding who does what in detail (we are already divided into bar teams and food teams).
It will be jolly quiet for quite a long time, apart from the odd pensioner asking how soon they can eat, but not coming along with their ticket until about an hour and a half later. Then it will get crazy as 250 people descend on the food line (rather more at the bar), demanding their dinners.
There is one group of people who every year are the last to come forward for their meals, making a joke of it quite often. However, as the volunteers can't eat until all guests have been served, by which time the first served are bringing back their trays and demanding their deposit for their dinner plates, it is beyond annoying. This time they also took all the chairs for the volunteers, so we ended up perched on crates and boxes, as we ate our late meal. Having said that, it is always a great atmosphere, although this year my patience with the Late Diners did wear rather thin!
If you are looking for a tip on how to time your dinner at an event like this, I would say an hour after the advertised start time at the earliest, and a good hour and a half or more before any fireworks!!
The fireworks were very good, but my photos aren't. I will have to try to get a video stream onto YouTube but as it is taking a good 5 minutes to load each photo today, I'm not going near that!
We now have about 10 days off community volunteering, until the next event in the village, Convivial'été. A very clever play on words there. The commune provides a bunch of material, a couple of pre-vetted groups and a bit of support, while we provide the food, drink and ambiance, but not until 1st August. So now we can concentrate on vegetables, fruit, burping barrels and what to do with the 30-odd courgettes I have in the kitchen.
Have a good week!
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