We wake to a July day from twenty years ago.
The sunrise is golden, the sky blue with fluffy clouds and I work in the cottage with the windows open and a gentle breeze. Although I have given up the gite, we still welcome friends and one is arriving next Monday (despite our suggestions to cancel). The temperature remains comfortably in the mid-twenties and the only smell is a faint one from the neighbouring field which is being sprayed with pig muck, much to Rona's delight.
This has been a day to treasure and a brief respite from yet another heatwave and the tragedy of the wildfires encroaching on Bordeaux. Over 100 kilometres away, we have felt their presence, as we have watched the hills on the other side of our valley disappear behind a curtain of brown smoke haze. The acrid smell of wood smoke carried ahead of a distant storm has us racing to close windows and doors optimistically left open in a vain attempt to cool the house.
I walk Rona late evening along the canal towpath in the hope that the smoke is held back by the water and the overhanging plane trees. And we watch the sun slip below the horizon, a single red disc through the murk.
Local communes cancel their summer events, afraid of the impact of the smoke on their vulnerable communards and the risk of fire from the casually thrown cigarette butt. Barbeques and fireworks are banned. The land is like a tinderbox from nearly three months with no rain. Our garden has never looked so sad and parched. I save water for the pot plants and one or two precious trees. The rest must cope as best they can. Late autumn, I will take stock and think again about what will survive in this rapidly changing climate.
Our minor discomforts are trivial, compared with what those in the Gironde are going through. And as for the firemen, what they are coping with is unbelievable.
We pray for rain and a change of wind direction and a world that finally wakes to what truly matters.
