Changeable

After a month of waking up, looking out of the window, and thinking 'blue sky and 30 degrees again', we had quite a lot of weather today.

It rained all through last night and was still drizzling this morning when I went out to the boulangerie for breakfast supplies. I even dug out a rainproof jacket especially for the occasion.

By the time I had prepped and delivered the three breakfast trays the rain had eased and a mean and moody sky was glowering over the town as I completed my market shopping for this evenings client dinner. It was steamy and humid but by no means cold - despite the locals being wrapped up in coats and scarves!

I dragged myself out on my bike (it's been about 10 days since my last outing) and pedalled off out into the Minervois. I can't remember seeing the landscape look so dramatic. There was low cloud hanging around the top of the Alaric mountains but the longer I was out the more the sky cleared until patches of blue emerged and the sun started to shine through.

Instantly the temperature shot up and steam started rising off the tarmac as the sun dried the damp roads. The contrast between the sun and the slate grey clouds was breathtakingly beautiful.

I was so distracted by this loveliness that I found myself in Marseillette after an hour of cycling and realised that it was of course the same distance back again. Ease myself back in to it I had thought - 40kms and two hours by the time I got back - and not a little weary from the effort. Today's ride took my total distance covered to over 500kms since I bought my bike computer back in late July - bloody hell, that's quite a long way.

When I met Cecile for a coffee in the square the sky was cloudless and the temperature was back up in the mid twenties - it was a glorious sunny afternoon. All my guests came back to change their clothes, having gone out prepared for a cool and damp day - which to be honest is what it looked like at 9.00am this morning. A rainy day in the Languedoc = an hour of rain and lots of sun either side of it.

Dinner for two sets of guests this evening was accompanied by the biggest, longest, loudest, brightest, noisiest, wettest, thunderstorm I can ever remember. Just as the guests arrived I detected the faintest distant rumble and mentioned that we might have a storm - understatement or what.

Ten minutes later the lightning was flashing across the sky every 60 seconds, the rain was lashing down the street and the thunder was drowning out all attempts at conversation. I picked a good night to not send them out to a restaurant.

It's all calm again now - the sky is quiet, the dinner is over, the guests have gone to bed and the washing up has been done (or is still doing in the dishwasher) and I have reached the limit of today's personal energy allowance - I'm pooped.