At Last!

 After two and a half months the weather has finally broken and we have had rain.  Not for long, but anything is better than nothing. "Aquitaine" it is not!

A small storm is rumbling around. It can't make up its mind whether to move up into Dordogne or along the Lot.  Rain ran before it, enough to give us, briefly, the rich, peaty smell of damp earth through the open kitchen door.

For weeks we have fretted that this will be the new norm - temperatures in the thirties, guests who do little except lie by the pool, even the ones who in previous years planned their days out.  We hide in the house, grateful for its thick stone walls and high ceilings and close everything down - curtains and shutters - as the unforgiving sun moves round.  

The garden is already autumnal - trees rapidly shedding their brown brittle leaves. The fallen figs are dried out on the ground and the lawns have become bare earth covered in dying weeds. What grass there is has not grown in weeks and is the colour of straw.

I cruelly leave the borders unwatered, asking the roses, geraniums, oleander and hibiscus to cope as best they can.  What survives will become the preferred new plantings for future years.

The guests help to keep the pots alive round the cottage - throwing on washing-up water and buckets from their showers.  I water the tomatoes, but not enough, or too erratically, and the large coeur de boeuf develop blossom end rot.

Until these last few days we have left the pool uncovered to try to keep its temperature below that of warm soup.

For ten days now, the forecasts have been promising the rain, but each day we've watched the small drawings of  grey clouds disappear from the charts. We gave up believing it would happen.  

So, finally, we send up a prayer of thanks to the rain gods and (apologising to those who are on still on holiday) hope that over the coming days we will have more - much more.