Shopping diversion

I shan't be going very far at all for the time being, so this morning I headed towards Laval d'Aix and St Roman, on my way roundabout way to U Express in Die, not only as they are pretty roads in themselves, but they also afford good views of the Justin massif that suffered the forest fire a couple of weeks ago. It's still under observation and out of bounds to the public, but thankfully there have been no signs at all of hotspots for a good ten days now.

My observation is that that pattern of burning is almost identical to that at Romeyer four years ago: some stands of Austrian pine are totally gone, the oaks have decided it's time to shut down till next spring and have gone all autumnal, and elsewhere its a mix of outcomes. It's a huge area affected (about ten times as much as at Romeyer), but if it follows the same pattern, the grasses will make good inroads even by next spring, as the oaks also green up, but the damage will still be very obvious for a few years yet. But by 2030, it'll be mostly green, with small trees and shrubs starting to fill spaces, and the grasses being well established. Austrian pines ('pins noirs' in French) will self-seed, but I very much doubt if they will figure in any proactive restitution that might happen.

Anyway, it was a lovely little ride, and now I've been to U Express and have what I need to make a greengage crumble from the fruit in my garden.

Cooking and gardening

I'm sticking to my take-it-easy regime here, which mostly revolves around doing stuff in the early morning, relaxing during the heat of the day, then re-emerging near sunset.

I'm also trying a new tactic for natural aircon for the house: I've opened up the hatch to the loft and two openings that are OK to leave open if it rains (not the case for the Veluxes!), and it passed with flying colours this morning, as I roasted some chicken legs first thing, and by 9am, the kitchen was still at just 24C (that feels cool here). The floors also got washed and hand laundry done.

I then reconnected my kitchen waste water collection system (a dustbin), watered the cherry tree and one or two border plants: I discovered that my lovely elderly garden neighbour had been good to his word, and had mown my jungle-lawn with his big petrol mower, and just as pleasingly, the greengage tree is heavy with ripe fruit. But I won't be turning them into a crumble today: that's have to wait till another cool morning!

Shopping

I just have to pinch myself that I can pop down to the shops via the Col de Romeyer, and still only do a round trip of 10 miles. Anyway, that's what I sis this morning, while it was still delightfully cool, but after I'd opened the house up for a couple of hours to take its temperature down by a degree or two. That I can keep it pleasantly cool even in the current climate is testament to the builders of three hundred years ago – it seems like they knew what they were doing!

 

Romeyer

Just a singular photo taken using my drone at 250ft – it's too hot to do much after noon at the mo, so I just wandered down the road to reacquaint myself with the drone, once I'd charged everything up. 

This is one of my favourite angles, as not only can I see Romeyer (and my house!) in the middle in its gentle green valley, but up behind is Vercors and the Roc de Toulau, and to the right is the Rocher de l'Aigle. Further to the right is the mighty Glandasse, but I think you know what that looks like by now!

Die market

It's one of the nice summer rituals for me: popping down to the market in Die, especially for my first one of the summer, with the range of choices of local fruits available, often at knock-down prices (partly a function of a lot of the fruit being picked almost-ripe and ready for sale). On today's menu for me were peaches, melons and a large beef tomato. As the next market is Saturday, there's no need to buy in bulk!

As I need to keep doing a certain amount of daily exercise for my recovering heart, I took the Lapierre gravel bike down, so I could make the most of the gentle ascent back home for today's workout, before the heat of the day kicked in.

Job done.

Justin time

 Apologies for the pun, but it has to be done at least once!!

Anyway, you'll gather I arrived safely: a day of three trains: Eurostar to Lille Europe; TGV to Valence TGV, and then the local train to Die, where a neighbour kindly met me and ferried me to Romeyer. The TGV had a few small delays, but thankfully there was enough leeway for the 15 added minutes not to cause me to miss anything.

This first week is planned to be a fairly lazy one, given my preceding four weeks of activity, so this morning I just popped down to do some salad shopping, and to see what the mountain around Justin (just south of Die) looked like after the forest fire (4200 hectares affected). Like the fire at Romeyer, it's a patchwork, and sad though it is to see the greens intermingled with brown and black now, nature – with human help – will heal and repopulate with plants that are more suited to the climate era we're entering at speed, it seems. The forest that was there was the result of human intervention at the beginning of the 20th century to re-forest barren hillsides, and since then, things have changed.

On the optimistic side, it's pleasing to see just what progress the Romeyer forest has done since the fire in 2022, and when health allows, I'll be back up there again looking at what's already exploiting the opportunities that come after forest fires.

Arrival day...

It only feels like a couple of weeks since I was last at Romeyer... mostly because it has only been two weeks since I was there!

I've completed my joyous duty of directing all the music for Exeter University graduations on the Exeter and Penryn campuses, so it's time for the long summer holidays. 

So yesterday I took the train up to London, and today it's three trains: Eurostar to Lille, a TGV to Valence, then the train to Die and a lift from the station to my house from my lovely neighbours. 

And now: we're just about to leave St Pancras.