thursday, May 29, 2008

Il faut du soleil! (we need sun!)

My head knows that it is spring but my heart is getting ready for hibernation. Well, this week it was 22 degrees here, but you had to be with your back against the wall in the full sun and well away from the wind. The mornings are cold and misty, the afternoons are unpredictable, sometimes cold, sometimes hot, but colorless and usually wet.

If I have to believe the predictions from MSN it always rains here, I mean, always. That seems excessive, it rains almost always, but not always. In any case it's been raining for so long that I do not remember the last time the sun shone. On May 1, I believe. Flowers give way to mold and slimy black algae creeping over the edge of the flower boxes. The flowerbox next to the house slowly changes into 'n bio pool and behind the house emerges a stream, the water seeps continuously down the rock and then through the backyard into the garden.

Some flower rot before they get a chance to bud out. Sowing seed is useless because all drownes or washes away. The place where regularly burned old and weeds has become impassable because of the water the boulders and earth that falls down from the rock above. We've been waiting weeks for a few dry days so we can mow the grass.

The neighbor that I never have heard exclaim otherwise than "il faudrait de l'eau" (need water) said this afternoon "il faudrait du soleil" (need sun) and in our neighborhood pub the boss cursed "on en a marre" (we've had enough). Even the crickets sing no more.

Yet, this year, we have already eaten three times out. At the evening sometimes the clouds draw away and with our sweaters on we can pretend it's summer. No better time of day than the transition from day to night, when the sun disappears behind the mountains and the sky in the west turns orange. Night sounds slowly fill the room, you hear the chirping of the crickets and the eerie whistle of a toad, a drop of water in the source, in the distance a dog that barks loudly and suddenly a bird sings. Once it was like this, but for now everything rots and stinks.

While Northern Europe in 2007 experienced the warmest spring ever, the Aveyron got swept away in mudslides, hail and it's happening again. It is our second spring in the Aveyron, and there's something wrong. Or should I fear that something very correct here. Was the Figaro right on the spot with the prediction that in the future the only dry time for us will be autumn?

The worst are the weather men and women who bring their gloomy tidings with imperturbable frolicsome nature, asif the weather is something futile which you should ignore. Apart from the fact that our garden is rotting away, the damage to a number of industries here is incalculable. It should be penalized, "Who looks coy while he or she announces that yet another hail rain or mud stream is underway" should be exiled to the North Aveyron for three weeks. And, oh yes, do not forget your camping gear". Then they would henceforth present the weatherforecast with appropriate seriousness .

I must say, i lost my capability to laugh. The weather here is a horrible and I'm looking forward for one thing only: the autumn.

What do you think of the weather in your current environment?
Selection		Votes
ideal	31%	33
worthless	30%	32
is alright	27%	28
dont give a rats ass, i'm a meteorologist	11%	12
105 votes total
(eindresultaat op 19-2-2012)

posted by Maartje Heymans at 23:33  |  send a comment

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