Sleeping naked

A dovecote?

Thursday 5^th July Threatening another 35 degree day today. We were going to go to Lalinde but not in this sort of heat. We’ll wait til Monday, when according to the forecast, it will be cooler!

Thursday 6^th July The trouble with the heat is that it builds on what has gone before. Before we knew it and despite all our precautions, the heat inside the mill shot up to 28.5 by midday. We were hot, but poor Tim was distressed again. We hosed him down twice and he had a splodge inn the stream, but he absolutely refused to have a wet cloth draped over him.

I don’t know if air conditioning is as common in France as it is in the UK – that is to say, practically none-existent, but I suspect it is so except in the homes of the very rich and the big modern public buildings. The heat wave seems to have dropped out of the news once the highest ever temperature in France was recorded, but believe me, the heat goes on in the mid-high 30s day after day. We worked in the mill room, which was the coolest place; cleaning the window and renewing a coat of white paint around it.

Sleeping with all the windows open, naked under a single sheet, is a rare experience for me, but the night air didn’t cool the house down even though the outside temperature dropped to 17 degrees and thunder and lightning woke us at 5.30 am. Spectacular sheet lightning moving west to east along the valley, a moderate wind and rain that lasted precisely fifteen minutes and then stopped.

We’ll see what today brings.