Slow Days, Breezy Evenings
There’s sunsets and then there are sunsets. I think you know what I mean.
There’s the type where the sky goes crazy and explodes with colors that seep deep into your soul. Those are the kind we used to get in the SW US desert in the winter, memorable sunsets that are a feast for the eyes.
Then there’s the kind of sunset you get after a long hot day, where the sun is perfectly round, a sharp circle of bright yellow that fades to orange and red as it slowly descends past the horizon to set. It’s not dramatic, or even that elaborate, but the contrast between fire, and the smoothness of that circle is still just as mesmerizing, a burning contradiction that both pushes and pulls you in.
Those are the kind of the days that we’ve been having here in France. Hot, exhausting afternoons where everything bakes in an unrelenting heat, followed by a cool evening breeze that rises deliciously as that big, burning ball of fire finally sets. The contradiction is intense, and the evening relief is palpable. We long for it like a lover returning home after a long absence.
And thus time goes on, with a cadence and flow that has a life all its own.
During the day I feel a little like that scene from Lawrence in Arabia where he’s riding on camel-back through the notorious Nefud desert. The searing heat and monotony causes him to lose focus, and he almost slips off his camel and falls into a dangerous (and eternal) sleep in the sand.
Admittedly it’s a rather overly-dramatic visual for our little hamlet of SW France, but every time I step out into that heat, I can’t help but think of that scene.
I may not be riding through the desert on a camel in flowing robes, but I do walk rather slowly through our country backroads in long-sleeves, elastic-waited yoga pants and a sunhat (to protect my sensitive pasty white skin). And sometimes I do rather lose myself, drifting through the hot afternoon. It’s similar, no?
Despite The Heat & Dry, We’ve Got Produce
Amazingly our garden still produces even in this heat and sécheresse.
Our Asian pear tree is going nuts, as it always does this time of year. It’s an usual tree that surprises me every year with how much juicy fruit it produces without any kind of water or support. A real gem in this heat. Our regular apples are all ripening too, and will soon ready to be plucked.
Our grapes, on the other hand, have suffered a bit from too much heat, and not quite enough water. Many have shriveled and died, but the ones that have survived are saturated with the most intense sweetness, like mini-drops of candy. They’re so amazingly good. And of course our tomatoes are still doing wonderfully, soaking in the intense rays of sun, and transforming them into succulent yumminess.
Certain other plants thrive in this heat too, beyond all expectation.
Our lavender is still blooming and providing precious nutrients to a plethora of insects, and bees. So is our oregano, and thyme, and several other herbs that will soon reach their peak and be done for the year.
Plus our oleander, the infamous poison plant, is flowering beautifully, as are our dahlias. Both are masters of the heat and never need much water, a few of the plants that are truly pretty and thrive this time of year. These are living things that survive, even in the harshest of conditions, a good reminder in these brutal times.
And I’m Still Baking (In the Oven)
As far as baking goes, other than the kind that happens every time I step outdoors, I’m still doing a bit indoors here and there, just less often to prevent the kitchen heating up too much from the oven.
I managed to get a few breads out this week made from locally grown and ground spelt flour, and I put together a delicious frangine using our Asian pears. It’s a classic French tart made with a beautiful pâte sablée as the base, a layer of deliciously dark chocolate (my personal adaptation), and a sweet nutty almond marzipan paste to hold the fruit. I base it off this recipe from Le Journal De Femmes (which, together with Marmiton, are my 2 favorite French-based recipe websites) and it always turns out beautifully.
For Polly, It’s A Dog’s Life
For Polly all this is right up her alley. She loves lounging around, and living a country life packed with routine.
It all starts in the early morning when we take a lazy walk around the village and to enjoy the morning air and chat with our various neighbors. Polly doesn’t see the point in all that standing around and talking business, but she does enjoy sniffing the village dogs, staring down the goats, and whining to all the cats that tease her along the way (why doesn’t any cat want to be my friend?). It’s a good walk.
By mid-morning we’re back home and she is in her favorite AM lounge spot, under my old office desk (well it was my regular office desk, that somehow transformed entirely to Polly’s den), basking on the cool tile and the air from our standing fan. She’ll dream of doggie things for hours, content in deep sleep until lunchtime.
At the midday repas she’ll rouse herself, ready to share tasty morsels of goodness that invariably find their way from Paul’s plate to her stomach. Then she’ll move outside onto the shaded terrace, to digest and survey her vast domain. She’ll pretend to work a bit just for appearances sake, and if someone does happen to drive up to the gate, she’ll alert everyone with a prolonged bark and then strut around with immense pride as a multitude of “good doggie” compliments are showered her way. It’s justified praise for a job well done. Then she’ll relax back into her indoor office den, for another well-deserved multi-hour siesta. Finally she’ll perk up again for happy hour and dinner, eager to join us for more tasty morsels and an after-dinner stroll in the cooler air. It’s a good life.
For a dog that spent 10 years of life on the road, Polly really has adopted incredibly well to this stationary phase of her life. She loves having all this space to herself, free from other campers and dogs to call her own. She’s lazy and happy, as every old doggy should be.
And, Regular Life Goes On
Other than the heat, and the slow days regular life is slowly clicking on.
This is actually the time of the summer soldes, where all boutiques in France are officially allowed to sell at a discount for a period of exactly 4 weeks. All formally regulated and controlled, as such thing are over here. Every week there is an additional “step” in the sales, with deeper discounts, but lesser stock. For sales aficionados this is the highlight of their year, and a time to hunt down the absolute best deals (oh, there’s a winter sale too after the New Year, in case you’re curious). It’s kinda like the French version of Black Friday in the USA, and admittedly we’re not really participating (which is what we didn’t do in US either LOL). Guess I’m not much of a shopper….
This week-end is also another big event in France, the chassé-croisé where the folks who vacation in July (les “Juillettistes”), cross paths with the folks who vacation in August (les “Aoûtiens”). It may seem an odd thing to those that have never experienced it, but in France it’s a major deal that creates masses of traffic jams and circulation problems throughout the country. Think Thanksgiving travel craziness, throughout France, all at once. If you’re traveling it’s absolute mayhem, so much like the summer sales we choose to avoid it altogether. Guess we’re not fulltime travelers anymore either…
And finally, we’ve had some good news too. This week was my dad’s 2-year post-op cancer checkup. The prognosis was not good when we came over here in 2018, even the doc admitted that, and what he went through was considered a “last resort” procedure. But miraculously, amazingly, dad made it through and 2-years later he is cancer free….for the third time. When we presented the results to the doc this week, he drew a big smiley face on the paper and basically told us to go away and not come back again for another year. It’s a breath of relief in these crazy times, and a reminder that good things do happen, even now.
And thus another week ends in SW France. Not much went on this week admittedly, but that’s just the way of life sometimes. So how about you, my dear blog readers? Tell me about your week, tell me your news. It’s slow and hot here, so I’m ready to listen and want to read it all.
Love your posts Nina. Say hi to Paul & Polly. Good to hear about your Dad.
LOVELY to hear from you Piyush!! My best regards to your family.
Nina
Wonderful post! great photos, especially the hayfield with bales, and doggy-days I well remember when I had a doggy companion in my daily life. Your post brings me good memories of my walks with a dog in France, too (twas home/dog sitting for 3 mths near Montaban), but it was winter! Everyone wears rubber boots in France in the winter 🙂 cause it’s always muddy and wet and cold and sloshy. Don’t know which is worse, unbearable heat or cold mud everywhere.
I have to admit I’ll go for the cold any day. At least you can bundle up! That said the winters are lovely down here in the southwest, so I can’t exactly complain. It gets much colder, wetter & miserable in the north. Wet & miserable is pretty horrible too.
Nina
Ohhh those sunsets are delicious and luscious. Polly looking wonderful too.
The cat and I would so love a holiday somewhere rural and picturesque like that. Well, I say the cat would but she runs away every time I move a thing in case it means we are moving, so I’m not sure how she’d like it but she’d grown up next to a field with wicked sunsets over it and I’m sure she misses that in this urban pocket garden hedged in by the tallest evergreens ever to be box hedged.
I’m so happy for you and your dad’s all clear. May your summer be as good as the best days so far.
Oh I think kitty would probably adapt pretty quickly. It was actually lovely to see how our 2 cats enjoyed their final years here in the countryside. I’m happy I was able to give them that. But animals also just love to be with us, no matter where. Give your cat a kiss for me.
Nina
Aww thank you and Miss Mainie the cat sends many cat kisses back. She is especially grateful for your blog which helped me figure out her thyroid issue and how to look for the best treatment. We know you miss your furballs as we do ours and it’s so good to know they had such fun lives.
Wish I could share the snapshot of us right now, me laying on bed in my cool room, trying to escape the 33C outside and the cat sprawled over the length of my lap/legs, happily being a little furry furnace.
Wishing you all a cool breeze and good health.
So happy to read the good news about your dad !!!
Thanks for all your lovely posts. Stay healthy and happy
Love the writing this week! Cheers to your Dad and his amazing recovery.
Your hot weather tart looks and sounds yummy— thank you for the French food links.
We are in our monsoon season here in Taos, NM and fortunately the rain is coming most afternoons. I talk to my garden everyday and remind it that the time is growing short. Only Aug and Sept left— so produce!
Thank you— looking forward to your next photos and blog.
I just had the most wonderful image of you chatting to your produce (I do it too). Lovely.
Nina
Well as usual we’re in a drought in Southern Oregon, and hoping for some rain and no fires. It’s hot, but we are taking the RV to Bullard’s Beach on the coast for 9 glorious cool days! Don’t remember if you’ve been there….but there’s a lighthouse, so you probably have Happy for your dad’s good news. Stay well!
OH BULLARDS BEACH!!! I just had a huge pang of nostalgia. We volunteered at that lighthouse for several years as hosts. SO love that place. Enjoy!
Nina
Wonderful news about your father. Did he have a special diet with his treatments? It would be good information. Great pictures.
So dad did have to go on a special diet for his treatment, but it was a bit of an odd diet. He had to eat a super LOW-fiber, bland diet for around 6 weeks prior to his cryosurgery treatment. So basically he could only have white starches (e.g. rice, pasta), and white meats, plus no oils or alcohol anything with fiber at all. Not exactly super healthy, but it was necessary for the treatment.
Nina
I love your easy going style of writing and the sunsets are truly amazing. Life here in the outskirts of Portland, OR is much the same as yours with virus distancing still a major concern. We love the sun but the heat level has been high for us which results in a struggle for many things . . .be keep our bird baths and chicken waterers full of cool water and our frig stocked with cold ones . . .life is good in many ways as we face the unknown challenges.
I feel you on all those unknowns. And the bird baths…now that’s lovely. We have 2 bird baths that I fill daily here. It’s so nice to see the birds come and drink/splash around in them.
Nina
Cheers to your Dad for such good news!
Your sunset pics remind me of vacations in Maui … the lanai at the condo we rent every year is waterfront and faces west, and each evening the sun seemed to put on a show just for us, and the condo live in residents sent it to rest with a conch-shell tribute (my husband tried it with them once … it’s harder than it looks!).
Hot and somewhat sticky in Northern Nevada … 24 – 30% humidity and 100 degrees is quite a bit for us. We took our dogs up to Lake Tahoe for the morning and enjoyed the delicious 85 degrees, then went even HIGHER up to Mt Rose Meadows for a little easy hiking/strolling at 74 degrees. It’s a blessing to live so close to the Lake and the High Sierras in the summer time. A half hour drive gets you a 30 degree drop in temp. But eventually you have to come back down to reality.
You brought back two lovely memories for me….the vacations we did (back in the day) in Hawaii, and the time we’ve spent in the High Sierras. Such great places. You live in a beautiful place.
Nina
I really enjoyed your descriptions of the lazy hot days of summer and the routines of the cool hours. Pretty much the same here in N. CA. All the state campgrounds are still closed, so it’s put the kybosh on coastal camping for us. Maybe OR. will be in the cards. Some mornings we play Pickleball at the local public courts and on the other mornings we ride our bikes on the bike trail that runs along the American river. Evenings are spent playing ping pong, or a tile game called Rumikub. Lots of reading etc. my wife is still working some of the time from home (architect), so that has been a factor in staying local. Peri the cat has enjoyed having us around with her and she has been accustomed to watching ping ping from her favorite chair, or lying on the deck blanket waiting for an intense game of tile rummy. Life is much like yours with Paul, loving and tranquil.
All the best.
Gosh I didn’t realize all the campgrounds in CA were still closed….ugh! I’ve lost touch with some of all that news over here. If you get the chance Oregon is fabulous. We used to spend every summer there & absolutely loved it. Check out Cape Blanco, if you haven’t already.
Nina
As always, beautifully written. Thanks for sharing your life with us Nina. Give Polly a great big hug.
~Sheila
So great to hear about your father , great news
We are fine,Alex finished her beauty school and although jobs are not plentiful she is doing old jobs and some Jaír jobs at home
Sure miss you guys
Love from the other old man
MISS YOU GUYS!! Nina
I am so thrilled to hear about your dad. What a relief it is for all of you and how nice it must be for him to have you there.
Life here in NY’s Hudson Valley sounds much the same as there. We do not have central air in this little house we have but small window and and wall units in 2 rooms with fans positioned just so to redirect the air has kept us from aspiring from hyperthermia. We added some solar panels this winter but still must try to limit usage so the a/c has only been on a few times. Mostly we get by with ceiling fans and shaded windows in daytime.
No veggie garden this year but the flowers are doing relatively well except for whatever creature is eating the petals of my echinacea. Grrr. Possibly it’s chipmunks which seem to have experienced a population explosion. They are everywhere, darting out of garden beds, out of gutter drainpipes and up from holes they dig next to each plant… Our two cats have been absolutely no help at all. Chloe, who lives here full time has decided that her brother, Cadbury, should be relegated to the porch, where he is perfectly happy to lie sprawled out against the cooler floor during the day recovering from his night time forays which include only control of moles and mice. It’s interesting to see that the two of them who have never really gotten along since they were kittens have worked out an arrangement that seems to work for both of them.
We have planted 3 trees hoping that they’ll grow enough within the next several years to provide some shade on the west of the house. (The panels face due south) But, we figure in 20-25 years (what we calculate to be either our life span or being so old it doesn’t matter) they’ll be lovely and tall and we can spend our dotage sitting quietly on benches in their shade and reading.
Having arrived in NY at the height of the pandemic and just before masks were mandated and having been able to watch the decrease in cases, the gradual loosening of restrictions has been interesting but heartbreaking as we watch so many other things of the country going on opposite directions. It’s sad to see the politicians playing with people’s lives.
Our plans to spend July-September in Canada died with the pandemic but we’re hoping to get to Maine and then travel the east coast to Maryland in September- November IF rates continue to decline.
Of course, life is never dull and our son arrived home from work this evening to tell us that the store location where he works will be closing at the end of October. Despite the fact that they are the top producing store in their division, the mall where they are located is not doing well and the rents are climbing. He is lucky because he takes care of the house we have when we are on the road in return for a reduced rent and has no other responsibilities. He is learning at a relatively young age, however, how quickly things can change in life and is hurting for his friends who have families to provide for and financial responsibilities. The good news is that they have offered them jobs in other locations, one of which is nearby enough that he can easily commute, but which jobs will be available won’t be known until after the furloughs for covid-19 have ended.
I hope things cool off over there and you can enjoy the beautiful falls that I remember and that this ugly disease is finally under control.
Lovely to read all your updates. So glad your two kitties have found their routine. And Maine would be a wonderful trip…I hop you get to do it!!
Nina
You said it so much better than I did Nina–the doldrums of summer heat, the isolation of Covid. Emmi is now 11 years old and still acts like a puppy. The heat sends her to her chair in the late morning and she remains there for several hours. If Amazon doesn’t deliver those air conditioners soon, we may melt.
OH noooo….still no AC!!! I do hope you get them soon. We are so utterly dependent on ours now.
Nina
Your life in France sounds quite wonderfuldespite the heat. Polly seems to love her life there. I live inNorthern California and it’s been hot forever now it seems. It does cool off at night so that’s something. We had to cancel all our camping trips this summer due to Covid-19. I especially miss going to Tahoe but I wouldnt risk the craziness of Tahoe with summer visitors this year. Hopefully next year things will be a little more normal.
I’m sorry you had to cancel your camping trip. We have canceled everything too (for the time being). It’s frustrating, but it really feels like the only right thing at the moment. I’m hoping for next year too….
Nina
Oh my goodness, your life sounds much like life here in the NYS Finger Lakes. We’ve had heat and humidity for weeks on end. The best part of that is Seneca Lake, usually quite chilly to those of us over a certain age has been lovely to swim in, even for those of us out of our teenage years (for a while). Some areas have had enough rain to keep things green but today we had our first multi hour rain. Unfortunately we sat on the edge of the storm so it was fairly light. I definitely did get the desert feeling and have gotten enough heat to last for a very long time. Other than that – life is pretty slow except for catching up on drs appointments, harvesting the veggie garden as things ripen, and eating fresh fruit too from the family farm.
We are seeing an influx of tourists, as is the case every summer, but this year it’s quite scary knowing that many are coming here for the relative safety that is rural NYS and coming from ‘hot spots’ for COVID. Just hoping that the visitors don’t bring sickness to leave with us when they leave. It certainly is good for the local economy but it won’t be helpful if we have to shut down again.
Love reading about what’s happening in your neck of the woods and especially knowing that even tho’ there’s a big body of water between us life isn’t so very different in other places of the world.
Ah the Finger Lakes….I am SO glad we got to see them in the RV. They’re a special place. I hope the virus situation stays manageable in your area, despite all the tourists. It’s a tough, tough balance.
Nina
So glad to hear the good news about your dear father. I’m sure you know I lost my beloved father on May 1st. Cherish every moment that you have together.
Oh Laurel, I’m so very sorry. Losing a parent is like losing a tether in life. It’s never quite the same after. My deepest condolences.
Nina
So happy to read the good news of your dad. May he enjoy the best of health in the coming year. I enjoy your lovely blog, travelling to France has been a long-time dream. Thank you for sharing your beautiful slice of the world with us.
We in Kentucky are enjoying a brief respite from the searing heat and drought of July. A bit of rain has greened up the pastures, and the grass no longer crunches under our feet on our daily walk around the fields. The best news of late has been a slight pause in the rise of infections. It seems to us more people across every spectrum of society are finally acknowledging the crisis. Fingers crossed!!
I can just feel (and smell) that rain you’re talking about. Nothing like the greening of pastures after a long spell of dry….bliss.
Nina
So happy to hear your father’s good news! I’m sure it is directly tied to your arrival there. Beloved daughter comes to stay and all is well in the world. Love your descriptions of a day in the life of miss Polly. She loved her life on the road and she loves her life of total freedom. Dogs love their lives, a lesson to be learned. Lewis loves his freedom to wander, sleep where he pleases, “get busy” where and when he wants and the ability to chase away any boat that dares come into our cove. Great to hear from you. The simple passing of days is good news these days!
I miss lovely Lewis…such a good boy. Polly sends her love.
Nina