Looking back, I haven’t written a blog for a month! And, this time, it does mean that I have not had my most productive weeks of the year but thought I’d better write something almost as proof of life!
We are certainly well into summer routines and, we are delighted to say, that we have been full in the gîtes since the end of June and will continue to be so until September. This takes a lot of effort to keep things ticking over but also means that many of the jobs I would like to do have to take a back seat.
Many of the jobs I have lined up make quite a lot of noise, principally hedge trimming and drilling into the pool house to complete the cladding, which isn’t ideal when guests are relaxing by the pool and enjoying the sunshine.
And that has been the other reason it hasn’t been so productive, we have had a lot of sunshine! As the UK and the whole of France, we have experienced our third heat wave of the year which, while not quite as hot as those we enjoyed (endured?) in May and June, has been pretty uncomfortable to work outside and we are now officially in severe drought conditions.
The one thing all French people ‘know’ about Brittany, is that it rains all the time. I can’t recall the last time we had any rain of any consequence. Thankfully we haven’t had the terrible fires that other areas of France are experiencing, and we don’t want to experience what we had in 2022 when it was equally dry, but plants are certainly starting to suffer and we are eking out the ran water in our water butts to keep some things alive.
The drought led to the cancellation of many of France’s Fête Nationale firework displays including ours in Sizun and has restricted access to areas of forest to minimise the risk of fire.
I did make a start on the hedging before the current heatwave began but only managed to complete the lonicera hedge along the orchard. From the picture you can see how parched the orchard’s lawn has become.
I have managed to give the wisteria its summer trim for which it looks better, although I didn’t take any pictures before I did it, it was growing over the roof and under the tiles but now is rather more controlled.
With the heat, we have also had a couple of thunderstorms. Unfortunately, the storm we had a couple of weeks ago was extremely close. So much so that, despite fuses blowing in every building, as a previous strike in September 2024, we lost a number of electrical items including TVs, decoder boxes and every satellite LNB.
When it last happened we said that we needed to invest in some surge protector extension cords but foolishly didn’t. Lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place does it?! No storm related issues for 9 years then twice in 2! If heatwaves are going to be more frequent and stronger we suspect the associated storms are likely to be more violent, this time we will buy the protectors and make use of them!
With our gîte changeover day being Saturdays, our Sundays generally remain clear for us to complete our Sunday strolls. Due to the heat we have continued to walk stretches of the Nantes – Brest canal and have only one stretch left before we would have completed the whole of the Châteaulin to Châteauneuf-du-Faou stretch.
We have really enjoyed walking the canal and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys walking or cycling but wants to avoid the hills!! Another option is the voie verte that is the old Roscoff to Concarneau narrow gauge railway that we walked a lot over winter.
As this morning was the coolest and dampest we have had for weeks (I hesitate to say wet as it was more mizzle that might just dampen the surface than proper rain that we need to soak the ground) we decided to walk another stretch and headed to Kermeur Gare.
The old station is one of the many that still exist but this one is derelict. We used it as our start point to walk back towards Scrignac and meet up with a stretch we walked earlier in the year. As the canal, we hope to cover most of its length but it is likely to take several months but it’s good to have a goal.
My goal for next week, despite it continuing to be hot and dry, is to make more progress at something beneficial!!
Salut.