This has been so far our mildest summer in the south of France, weather has been hovering about the early twenties so working the Chambre d’Hote has not been a constant battle against the heat.
Until yesterday.
The moment it hits you that it has gotten really hot is the moment you step out of the air-conditioned supermarket and get hit by a wall of heat- that happened yesterday afternoon. We hurried into the car to find that the temperature was 37 degrees, nothing record breaking but a lot hotter than it was before.
But you acclimatise very quickly and the old stones, and shutters of our house protect us from the heat of the sun.
I fear it no more.

Last week my friend from Waterford, Eamon Barrett, quoted on his Facebook page a poem by Stanley Baxter (the Scottish actor) which I think I will embroider onto a sampler.
Anytime I feel the least like complaining about the heat this poem should act as an antidote with its strong memories of summer sundays in Waterford.

This is our real damnation,
This thin drizzling rain.
Not the perilous east ascent,
Or the deserts fiery pain.
It’s not the great big kick-up-the-arse things
…that finally get you down.
It’s the steady drip of suburban leaves
That are not in, and not out, of town.