POOR vendangeurs!

It is throwing it down, as it has been for most of the morning (apart from the times when it was only raining steadily).

I've just seen a van-load of people going down the road by the house; I don't know if they've packed it in because it's just too horrible, or whether they have finished their vines at the back of us and are heading on to another hillside somewhere.

It really is spectacular: we had thunderstorms during the night [heavy enough to wake me through the ear plugs], and the odd rolls of thunder even now.

[If the lightning and thunder were closer together I'd be unplugging the phone line & computer, but they are far enough apart to have me wondering if that particular bolt of lightning doesn't have any thunder associated with it.]

We've "lost" the far end of the valley, but I can just about make out the wood over the Mairie; my standard for 'completely closed in weather' (cloud, rain, or fog) is when we can't see the Mairie at all!

There's a trail of beige-coloured water heading down the gutter as a little bit of our drive washes away; it's not very bad, but it takes ages to clean up again.

David was sure the heat (especially coming on so completely and suddenly after weeks of rain) would lead to thunderstorms, and he was right!

Today is the first day that temperatures have dropped since morning: it was 22°C, and is now down to 18°C. It's taking longer in the house: the temperature in the kitchen is 23°C, but as I have had to close all the windows to prevent rain coming in and ruining our wooden windowsills, only the door is open to permit air flow.

I've had to shut the other doors as I don't want rain marking the stone floors. Tiles won't stain, but until we find some sort of treatment for the bare stone I'm always super careful to try and prevent marks.

I'm now very glad I've done as much dead-heading/cutting down as I did, because rain on top of the warmth of late summer might well lead to another growth flush in all my plants.

And we're back to where we started: a tractor has just gone down the road with a trailer of grape crates on the back; I suspect that poor person has been loading them up after the vendangeurs left earlier.

That bolt of lightning was followed almost immediately by the crack of thunder, so I'm off!