9/10/13

Summertime - The End







Two weeks ago we were invited to a wedding... Well, not the kind of wedding I’d like to blog about but the point is that the bride’s brother now lives in the French Antilles. His wife sent a family movie to be watched during the reception.

Outside the hotel in Brittany, the skies were grey and the sea breeze was quite chilly...

In the French Antilles, the ocean was blue and turquoise and limpid. The sun was definitely shining over large white sandy beaches. The bride’s brother and his wife and their children were obviously having a thoroughly enjoyable outdoorsy life. The so-called perfect life when every morning, you open your eyes and the sun dazzles you. Every morning. Day after day.

How boring!

Well, this summer was almost wearisome in Brittany... In Northern Brittany, I mean. Sunny days. Calm seas. Every day. Unbelievable.

People looked happy. Popeye was happy. We went boating and boating and boating again... Long distance boating that is... A boat filled with happy wakeboarders and happy lazy sea lizards if I may say so! Meaning -  watching the wakeboarders while lying on the deck.

Popeye found it hard to go back to work. Very unusual, I’d say.


The first week in September was just as sunny and warm than in July and August... What a tiresome thing to report every night that yes, the sun was still shining and the sea was still calm and yes, too bad he was away working hard and yes, I was so very lucky...

How boring! Besides the fact that farmers were grumbling and gardeners were worrying... Not enough rain... Actually no rain at all.

And it all started on Friday afternoon...




Another perfectly blissful day at least in the morning and early afternoon. Tee shirt and cutoffs and bare feet. Empty stores because everybody was sunbathing on the beach...

I went and took my usual long walk on the beach around 3. Perfect syncing with the ebbing tide.

Ever since Monday, there were quite a few German students working on the rocks and the beach... Picking seaweed samples and shellfish. Very studiously of course!





I walked and walked along the shore that was overrun with a thick carpet of brown and green algae. Quite slippery from time to time but very interesting because it reminded me of pictures of the Everglades I had seen, the Everglades as seen from a plane, my Everglades in Brittany...

On my way back, the tide was already rising... and the sky was clouding over quite swiftly. Dark ominous clouds.





The sea was swelling up and the air was suddenly getting much cooler.

When I went to pick Popeye at the station that night, he knew that there would be no boating during the week-end. Actually it rained during the night. Not too much but enough to quench the thirst of the garden plants. There would be no watering at night.

We spent our week-end lazing around. Leafing through books about landscaping. Planning our new garden. But mainly pottering round the house...

This afternoon, I went back to the beach. My daily walk, remember.

Walking shoes on. Which I kept forgetting I was wearing after walking barefoot for so many months! Great shoes by the way... not at all affected by my reckless crossing of puddles and even a few pools of seawater!



Oilskin on my back... 55°F (13°C) and very strong winds... and lashing rain!


The whole works!

Let’s admit it... Brittany is not boring at all when it gets back to its true self... As soon as I got back home, the sun came out from behind the clouds and all of a sudden the beach turned golden once again!




But by then I was feeling much too tired to set foot outside again!

It is getting very late now. The wind is roaring outside and the waves are so raging that I can hear them from my room even though the shutters are tightly closed.



Oh, I love Brittany!







*Good Luck, and Good Night*

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