For the two and a half months before August arrived, we had experienced heat like never before. With temperatures in the upper 30’s and lower 40’s Montauban seemed to have been magically plonked down into Northern Africa.
Well, this heat may not be for everyone, but we took it with good grace, if a little too much perspiration…
Then arrived August, and with it its usual host of welcome guests, visiting local hostelries, eating scrumptious meals in relaxing company. It was bound to end badly…
First came Domitille & Vincent with their two offspring, who stayed with us for the first half of the month.
Then arrived Bernie and Geoff, with their daughter Jenny, who brought with them our first experience of wet weather for some time.
We toured the usual tourist traps.
The first couple of weeks of August seemed to bring an end to the seemingly endless heat.
We were wrong. It was to return.
John & Susie’s visit in the third week of August saw temperatures once more increasing, only to bring another couple of days of inclement weather.
August over here is renowned for its storms. The last couple of years had been disappointing in this respect. Our disappointment is at an end.
Lisa’s visit for the final week of August saw another scorcher. Even a short trip to the Pyrénées did not halt the humid heat.
Our final evening in France before returning to Wales (or so we thought) saw us sitting down to a meal of fajitas. At that point we noted the looming darkness, as if Montauban had been replaced by Mordor and its Nazgul.
Halfway through that first fajita the wind started to blow. Glancing outside, we saw our hefty barbecue trundling past. The power went off. The storm had arrived. But this was no normal storm, this was hurricane.
Few things put me off my fajitas, but this comes high on the list. The blasting winds were at first stunning, even slightly exciting, but then… frightening. The fajitas were forgotten as we saw the covers on the swimming pool being ripped off one by one. Then the pergola tried to wrap itself around the lampposts.
Then the ceiling started to drip. The lights in the kitchen, lit no longer, started to belch water. Our bedroom was the same.
This was not good.
Buckets and bowls were conscripted to battle the flowing water. Candles were lit to fight off the dark.
We seemed to be winning as eventually the storm abated enough for us to go out and try to rescue some of the panels from the pool. A hopeless task.
We left the garden to the following day. In the house all appeared calm, and so we gave ourselves up to sleep.
Attempting sleep with ongoing Chinese water torture is not easy, but eventually we slipped into slumber, only to be awoken by an enormous CRASH at about half four in the morning.
I am well aware of the vagaries of our visual system. Much of what we see is purely interpretation and invention. I hope this explains what I saw upon suddenly coming awake from deep torpor. I swear I saw Annick leap from the bed, do a loop-the-loop on the wall only to be buried beneath falling cabinets.
“What the f**k!” I screamed.
“Don’t worry” Annick responded, “It’s only the ceiling caving in”.
Well, she was right. Half of the bedroom ceiling was where it was meant to be, the other half, along with a huge quantity of wet insulating fluffy stuff reminiscent of vomit, was lying on the floor around our bed, looking as if our bedroom had regurgitated over us.
It had missed us by inches.
After a vain attempt at clearing up, morning arrived and I drove Lisa to the airport to return, without us, to Wales.
The journey was heart-rending.
The roads around our house were littered with broken trees and scattered cables as if a giant toddler had thrown its toys around. Driving past the chicanes of torn trees made driving somewhat hazardous. Once achieving more open roads, the true devastation hit us. Broken branches, trees torn out by their roots, entire orchards flattened beyond recognition, crops destroyed, roofs open to the elements. Armageddon.
On returning to Montauban I drove directly to our farm with a growing sense of unease. Giant Plane trees, so common on French roadsides, stood deformed with their limbs thrown across the roads that they had previously guarded. Poplars lay strewn about as if the final war had just passed by. I feared the worst. Had our farm survived? So many ruined roofs, with gaping wounds.
We were in luck. Our home-to-be was untouched, its new roof had held without fail. Fallen trees from the neighbouring forest seemed like nothing more than a gift of firewood, none coming near the house or its outbuildings. The snooker room was intact. Even the old barn was unscathed.
And so back to our old home, to stare impotently at the devastation. Our bedroom uninhabitable, the ceiling on the main level ruined, the garden trampled beneath giant feet, the pool denuded, the roof smashed by its own chimney top.
The sale of the house, necessary to finish the work on the farm, is now on hold, awaiting massive repair work.
It has been declared a natural disaster area (no, not just our house) meaning that insurance companies are bound by law to fast track payments. Maybe.
None of us were injured. Our neighbours twin boys had chosen, out of fear, to sleep in the lounge. Good choice. Their bedroom ceiling fell directly onto their beds.
And so, with freezer warming and water cooling, we sit under a mocking sun, awaiting the return of power to the house. Having seen the power cables strewn about like demented spaghetti, this could take a very long time…
Edit. Officially, it was a tornado. 2 dead. One young woman crushed by a tree, the other a truck driver who stepped out of his lorry to see what was going on. In his bare feet.
Edit 2. Two days later, power has returned, allowing me to finally post this blog…
For all photos of our August visitors … https://www.flickr.com/gp/phil-hyde/h2nw23
For photos of our touristic trips… https://flic.kr/s/aHskg3UMKD
