Heat: Warm, Warmer, Hot, Very Hot, Canicule!

Thery have been saying the word "Canicule" for about a week now...and while warm, then warmer, then hot...the days simply didn't apply the record breaking temperatures of the 2003 EVENT they called "a canicule" then. Well yesterday it certainly TRIED to be one with whatever temperature it was outside, 34 or 35 C, was equalled by the bloody humidity which stopped one in their tracks. We worked on the room in the morning, Kelly painting the windows their 2nd coat of Blinding White oil paint and I wallpappered away dripping in sweat til I couldn't either drip anymore or accomplish anything.
Then all work stopped. Today's work hardly begun when it ended, not just HOT, it is now Very Hot...and the sun is fiercely beaming down on us with narry a cloud in sight. Teperature? Currentl at 2:28pm...35C...or for you F folks...95 degrees with matching humidity. Peak summer afternoon temps don't generally level off until the sun angle drops to below 50 degrees to the horizon and that is about 5:15 pm in the afternoon. Today will be a Canicule day by that time. Then tonight, guess what? The fun of night lit skies and torrential downpours with winds to match as Thunderheads build about sundown and here we go again! Batten the hatches...I went up to the attic today and put down a 15' X 10' blue poly tarp to slow the leakage of the roof thru the attic. Moved furniture to more distinct piles and repositioned some pails and buckets and a small horse trough into places I THINK they will do the most good in. Nonetheless tonight promisses to be a doozy. All that heat means towering clouds with frozen tops, hail, grail and rain galore! Whoopee! So much for the drought. Tomorrow is supposed to be a rainy day with much lower temperatures, so be it. And good luck!

What The Hell Was THAT!

Woke a bit before 4am...noises, lots of noises and it isn't the morons on
their motorbikes either or with their drunken friends on the street as is
the usual case. Continuous lightning blasting thru the windows and wind
whipping them open in succession through the North side of Maison Blanc!
Papers flying out of the computer room adjacent to my sleeping chamber,
another window popping open and rain, horizontal rain pouring in to drench
the curtains, walls and whatever else (oh my god the electronics...nooooo!)
So I reach down and pull the cord to the extension cord that brings power to the Comp. Rm these days since the great electrical disaster 2 months ago.
In an instant another lightning flash took out Lignieres electricity in
total! In a minute it's back on, then off again as yet another flash
streamed out of the black sky above to blast another local power line. This time it's out for the count. Grab a flashlight and get Kelly up to help with the flapping curtains and open dikes of the windows. Water on the floor everywhere, rugs sopping wet are thrown over the dining room table to drip dry. Examination of other windows show great leaks being blown inside by the force of the gale outside. The wind just whistles away into the night. I can hear the buckets that make up the floor of our attic drumming with leaky roof discharge. After a half hour the worst is over, it quiets and I crawl into Kelly's bed to sleep as mine has been drenched with a pour from the ceiling through an open attic windows. Joy of joys. And tomorrow? More of the same? I suppose. I'll wire the windows all shut and closed as best I can with their latches. As I check the window in Kelly's room I spy a little sparrow chick sitting lonely beside the ledge, it's sister or brother lying 20 feet below dead. That'll probably be it's fate soon if the parents don't return to rebuild the destroyed mud and feather nest. Sad.