Winter turned to summer almost overnight, from snow to sunshine, in as much time as it took the gallant Monsieur Lebel to isolate the hijacked radiator, check the pipework and fire up the 'chauffage' - an expensive business. Daytime temperatures of over twenty degrees have meant that we have been able to dry out the worst of the wet with windows wide open. Dare I say, but occasionally it has been too hot. I had to rummage around in the garage for the sunshade just for lunch! I don't mean to sound smug but it really has been lovely here. Salad lunches on the terrace in March are quite mad but thoroughly enjoyable.
When I was young, back in the stone age, winter still lingered, sometimes quite viciously, in March. Wind and rain were the norm, not an aberration. Whilst river levels here are high due to snowmelt, the ground remain hard and dry, a sort of mottled green and ochre colour rather than the lush, verdant greens that we are used to at this time of year. The farmers are in despair for the season ahead. Unlike the Aude, our neighbouring 'departement', we have never had water rationing but our water may have to be diverted elsewhere yet. In the Lauragais, they are talking of changing their crops altogether because there has been no significant rainfall.
Some of us might have thought that Al Gore was exaggerating the case for action on climate change with his exponential 'hockey stick' curve but only a blind person could question it now. The landscape of our garden is metamorphosing before our eyes. The two huge lime trees are slowly dying of thirst, dropping branches in desperation every time a storm breaks. The lush greenery that once dominated the garden is giving way to drought resistant shrubs. The new borders may not survive a savagely dry spring unless gallons of precious and expensive water are sprinkled over them. This is a new phenomenon.
Ten, nine, eight years ago, we had some pretty miserable Easter vacations here. The family, cousins, grandma, Uncle Tom Cobbley and all, regularly huddled around the log fire wishing that the sun would come out just for one day. Back then, most Easter egg hunts took place in the rain and Easter was the least popular time to visit. Nowadays, it is better than summer, for the air is clearer, the storms are fewer and the snow capped Pyrenees are at their most dazzling.
Last year in April we had a spell of blazing weather, with temperatures in the high twenties, followed by a huge dump of snow which killed all our bees. Over the years, they had made their hive under the pantiles in the roof so I suppose that it was ineveitable. The terracotta, tragically, simply baked them to death. They have not returned. Who knows what will happen this spring?
Meanwhile, I spent a horrendous, hot afternoon in IKEA in Toulouse. And I thought that Southampton was bad! To avoid any risk of litigation, I will refrain from ranting about unhelpful staff, the complete closure of the loading zone and 'jobsworths' who refused to let me leave one trolley whilst I walked half a mile with the other one to the car. Ugggggh! I appreciate that IKEA is just a posh, Swedish warehouse but cabals of unhelpful young people huddled round a desk discussing their social life whilst 60 year olds calculate the cost of their next visit to the chiropractor is not a good marketing strategy.
On the upside, where else can you get nicely designed and reasonably decent bookshelves for under 60 euros? I now have a bank of them in one of the upstairs corridors ready and waiting for the arrival of hundreds of books which do not have a UK home. I shall not need to spend money on a gym membership this side of Christmas. I love my Kindle, especially for traveling, but there is nothing like the tactile feel of a real book for identifying with the aspirations of the author. He or she put it down in print and chose a typeface and spacing to suit. We owe it to them to read in it print. I don't suppose that such altruism was part of IKEA's mission statement but they certainly help to perpetuate our obsessive need to be surrounded by books.
I have been reading a lot recently about the 'passeurs' from hereabouts who bravely took allied servicemen and other evaders over the Pyrenees at great, and often tragic, cost to themselves and their families. I was lucky enough to be invited to a lunch with Scott Goodhall, MBE, when I was staying recently with a friend. Scott set up 'The Freedom Trail', a commemorative walk which takes place every July and has written a book about it. An inspirational man, he has done a lot to bring about the public recognition that such people deserve and remains very active in the ELMS society. He also helped Edward Stourton with his Radio 4 programme about the evasion lines.
Then, like the proverbial icing on the cake, in the Musee de la Liberte in St Girons the other day, I was chatting to the curator, the delightful and modest Colonel Guy Serris, about who was still alive. Mid sentence, in walks 94 year old Monsieur Joseph Gualter, who escaped over the Porte de Salaud in 1941 to join the Free French, landing in Italy in 1943 as part of the first Allied thrust. Books and photographs are as nothing compared with living history. We passed a delightful afternoon drinking tea and discussing the impact of the war on France. He is the most wonderful man, with a dazzling smile and a wicked twinkle in the eye, and I thoroughly enjoyed his company. We all owe people like him a great deal for the freedoms which we take for granted. Another evader, 86 year old Monsieur Jean Pierre Denat, a pilot, joined us so I couldn't have asked for a better end to the afternoon. Better than building shelves!
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