Un peu humide

Well, we often talk about the weather in these Blog Posts - and why not ... it's pretty important?! And if you want to 'think on' beyond the 'weather' to 'climate' then this year has been pretty interesting - both meteorologically and because of the unfolding situation with Donald Trump and the Paris Climate Agreement. This has been sharpened by the shock (to one's own sense of memory and time passing) that it is ten years since Al Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth and that we now have his new film, An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power. So, we write this Blog Post in the knowledge that 14 of the 15 hottest years on record have occurred since 2001. 

Right, having said that, this summer has been notable for us in its level of humidity (unusual in our experience in very 'local terms', as we are 500 metres altitude and tend to escape the humidity levels of Albi and the countryside that runs along the Tarn valleys). So, the very warm periods of weather have been interspersed with frequent storms: 

What's interesting is what this humidity seems to have encouraged. On the negative side, there are many more 'bugs and beasties' - notably the Box Caterpillar. Box tree caterpillars are the larvae of a moth that feeds on box (Buxus) plants. According to the RHS in the UK by 2014 the moth had become established in parts of London and surrounding counties; in many cases the caterpillars had caused severe defoliation indicating that the moth is likely to become a serious problem. In this part of France we had not really seen it until this year. The speed of the caterpillar infestation is very rapid and although spraying is effective, the webs that are formed by the caterpillars are very fine and dense - so these have to be knocked away when spraying .... a long process. The first signs of the caterpillar infestation are very clear and, on closer inspection, so are the webs:

After spraying, the results are grisly but satisfying! But then it is a question of seeing whether enough green shoots have survived. Oska is keeping an eye out for further infestation.

But the heat and humidity has not been 'all problems'. You may recall that in March 2017 we moved our olive tree from its large pot into the ground - and were quite anxious whether it would survive. But over the past 4 months it has thrived and last week we were very excited to see it is producing lots of your actual olives .... so, we're making sure it has its 'special feed' (don't ask ...) and regular watering (contrary to 'myth' olive trees do like water):

We reckon that the 'wild fruits' (for want of a better term) - blackberries, walnuts, mushrooms - are about three weeks in advance of their usual appearance/ripening phase:

- and in the 'cultivated' garden (we do try you know ....) we have got some grapes for the first time, and the tomatoes seem particularly prolific. While everything has continued growing due to the humidity (like grass ... grrr ...) this has been very noticeable with repeat flowering - so our herb bed is very prolific, with the herbs growing wildly, with abundance of flowering, which we have not cut back as the bees like it so much; and flowering shrubs and roses are having a second and even third production of blooms:

And perhaps most noticeably, because of the sound, the bees that munch the tiny flowers on the virginia creeper have been hard at work - leaving scatterings of green shreddings on the ground below. Usually we see this at the end of August/early September - so, something is afoot with things happening so early. All we need is the herons to be flying backwards and we know it will be a very hard Winter:

Well, all that has been quite bucolic  -  we'll write a slightly 'harder-nosed' Post soon! In the meantime ... to any readers of this, we wish you a very good summer, hopefully well away from fake news and any thoughts of Michael Gove without his mask.