One of my pleasures here is lunchtime salads on the balcony under a parasol, not only because it's such a nice spot, but also because the local salad stuff is so tasty. And I ran out of stuff yesterday, so had a good excuse to ride down to Die via the col de Romeyer - it's just a 10-mile loop, but with Chamaloc en route, followed by the descent into Die, I don't need much encouragement to take the diversion, rather than go straight into town.
Knowing that it would be another coolish start before a hot day, I set the alarm for 6.30am, resolved to make and cook a greengage crumble from the garden crop while I could leave the windows and door open. Delightfully, even once that was done, it was still cool enough to do some gentle work in the garden, tidying up round the edges, and using my battery mower to hoover up the clippings left after my lovely neighbour's thorough cutting of my jungle lawn.
Now that's done, it's 30C at midday, but still under 25C inside, so time for a lie-down in the cool, knowing that I've got a tidy garden and a pudding ready for this evening!
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.
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!
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!
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!
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.
