We need to adopt the farmers’ attitude and enjoy what we have

FOR most of this summer it’s fair to say I’ve been a prisoner of the weather. As soon as the temperature hits that 30-degree mark, the vice clamps down hard on my chest and I retire to sit beside the fan that moves the air enough to give some relief.

Any business outdoors has to be conducted before 11am as the heat soars in intensity and I work to a very different rhythm of life compared with before.

We have touched 40 degrees in the canicule heatwave a number of times this year and only the breathing exercises taught to me in pulmonary rehab have controlled my fears.

But, in the main, I’ve managed and, without tempting the fates, have got through these strange months of canicule and tempete (storm) without a flare-up.

A handful of old and new friends have visited as I was determined to fill this house with fun and laughter again.

They too have worked within my limitations and the wine has flowed as freely as ever into the night.

And it is through their stories, and those of others I once knew, that I learn over and over again that we’re all fighting our own different battles. But fighting in some way… we all are.

And that there is much, much, to give thanks for instead of dwelling on the loss. Cliches all, I know, but words we forget in our own misery.

Outside, the parc is still a moving carpet of colour although many of the plants – the roses, the wisteria and the oleander, for example – have finished.

In the fields surrounding LM, the brushstrokes of yellow of the sunflowers have faded as their heads bend, petals turned inward and they begin their shrivelling farewell.

The lavender has not fared well, probably because of the almost constant downpour for months before summer finally showed up.

But the fruit trees – fig, pear, apple and plum – are weighed down with bounty: the last gifts from nature before the hibernation starts.

Many birds have already gone and the garden is silent. I haven’t seen for days the treetop acrobatics of the pair of golden orioles that summered here, and it seems weeks since the prehistoric head feathers of the hoopoe shot up at my arrival.

Even the nightingale has been absent. All that is left is the house sparrowhawk that circles and zooms; stopping to take ease on the cables and to seek out prey.

I find these coming weeks of handover into autumn the melancholy ones, yet paradoxically also the richest.

Like the sun now at 6pm, as the plants and trees return to wait in the earth, they give out a last pulsing beauty as if knowing they’re running out of time.

There are still many weeks to come before the leaves turn and drop and LM’s cracks and moss spots will be revealed once more.

It’ll be a week or more before the children return to school and the functionaries and businessmen return from their month-long holidays.

But it has begun, that gentle slide into shorter days, silent nights and the anticipation of the big festivals to come, culminating in Christmas.

The farmers, I hear, are already wondering anxiously of just what is to come. We’ve not seen storms, such as we’ve had, in living memory, according to the forecasters.

There is something wickedly vicious in the intent of the electrical strikes – a ferocity we’re not used to. The tropical rain is now a frequent aspect but I hope not to have to worry about it soon as – yes, hurrah! – I got my loan and work will start as soon as the firm returns from holiday.

One farmer told me they might even have to rethink their whole planting timetable to work with this shift in climate.

But for now they work towards the fruit harvest and will soon reap the sunflowers and maize.

They have to strike a balance of the now and the future; caring for one while planning for the next when the rules have changed.

We may be doing a lot of that ourselves after next March if reason hasn’t overcome the insanity of Brexit.

But now in this phony peace perhaps we need to adopt the farmers’ attitude and, for these last few weeks of summer, enjoy just what we have.

Some Britons, the bank manager told me, have already gone – too nervous to wait and see if Brexit will actually happen. So for many this has been their last summer in France and they have returned to a land they no longer know nor wish to.

Anyway, the temperature has now dropped to 28C so I will go out and sit in the shade after a gentle walk around the house and before the long process of watering.

I will leave my phone and take my book and a glass of wine. There are many, many worse jails than this.

cookfidelma@hotmail.com Twitter: @fidelmacook

PHOTOGRAPH: JAMIE SIMPSON