Combatting the heat

Tuesday 25^th June The local farmer is working very hard in this excessive heat cutting his hay. Bill says he’ll be using air conditioning and keeping cool and dust free. Certainly, this tractor (the blue one) has a cab and the orange and green ones have none. The kites are circling the field following him to swoop down on escaping mice.

We walked along the cut portion last night with Tim and we both agreed that the hay crop is not as prolific as in past years. Rather thin, in fact. Must have been a poor spring for some reason, but since we weren’t here, we don’t know.

We stayed indoors most of the day and if we did venture out with Tim we stayed in the shade, only emerging around 4pm to dip in the pool and lounge around. Today, Wednesday, the heat is even greater. Yesterday was recorded as 38 degrees, today promises 39. Indoors, the temperature has shot up from 16 degree when we arrived on 12th, to 28.5 this afternoon, and that is with all doors and windows closed against the sun. Open the door and it is like opening an oven door- the heat blasts into your face. Tomorrow we might try closing the shutters.

The farmer worked all day, and came back last night, baling his hay in the dark with all the lights on the tractor as he chugged around the fields. I fell asleep around eleven, and he was still going.

Have done 11 laps of the pool in one go (though I have to admit it is not an Olympic size pool!) and lazed around in it for a while. Very cooling. Thursday is predicted to be 40 degrees all over France. We’ve been up since 6, walked Tim several times, cleaned up and now at 8.45, the heat is starting to rise, so the door is shut, the windows/curtains closed and we’ll see how we go.