Wednesday, August 18, 2010

So far this Summer

The weather has oscillated between dreich and sweltering. Yesterday we spent a lovely sunny day at the Lac de Lacanau, today we've cancelled an outing to Le Moulleau because it's grey and raining. In fact weather-wise it's sometimes difficult to remember if we're in Scotland or in France.Stop Press: now it's hothothot again and we're beach-bound for the second day in a row.

Most singular experience in Scotland was a bluegrass concert in a church in Moffat with Craig Duncan and friends all the way from Nashville, Tennessee folks.

It was a good for wasps — I suppose I really mean a bad year — in both Scotland and France. In the Dordogne there was an influx of those nasty Asian hornets. They seemed quite partial to the quince jelly in my trap improvised from a butter dish.



In completely unrelated news, we spent an hour or two in Thiviers last week and P. reminded me that as a boy Jean-Paul Sartre spent his holidays there. This rang a distinct bell and I remembered reading (or perhaps being told in Mr Walker's "Politics and the Novel" class?) that J-P's favourite boyhood pastime while there was performing enemas on a little girl. Can this possibly be true? And why is this useless trivia taking up valuable brain-space when I can remember so little of the Sartre I've read?

5 comments:

auntiegwen said...

No I can't help you with Msr Sartre and the enemas but I can commiserate re the weather. I had a big sprint out to collect my washing and now it's draped everywhere in the house and the sun is shining. But you know if I put it back out again the rain will restart!!!!

Lesley said...

Auntiegwen, Please can we borrow your washing for while as EVERYTHING here is so dry.
The dog is fagged out being on self- imposed lizard patrol.
As to Satre, nothing would surprise me.

Lucy said...

The Sartre trivia obviously stuck in the mind of Mr Walker too, or that of whoever wrote what you read it in.

We've been besieged by hornets too, though I think they're just normal European ones. They come to the outside light at night, but also the lit windows. I think it's something to do with mating behaviour. Can't say I like them.

BeefKing said...

your waspcake recipe photo is now my desktop image

Jeff said...

It's an unusual hobby, and worthy of interest, even fascination.

Confinement

Being confined indoors most of the day, just the four of us, is reminding me of the days when my children were wee and most of our weekends ...