Nice work if you can get it

(In Adriers, where we parked up last night for a couple of days away in Heidi the Hymer) 

With temperatures forecast to be in the high Thirties we were up and off as early as possible. Having planned to do the longest loop walk (10 km) and one of the remaining four later in the day, we decided that discretion should be applied. We elected to do the 7.5 km walk in the morning and avoid exertion in the afternoon! The walks will still be there the next time that we visit.

Being far too hot to leave Dusty in the van, we had invested in a backpack pet carrier and we took him on our walk with us. There were some mild complaints emanating from my rear aspect but he didn't seem to mind the adventure too much.

7.5 km with  cat on my back proved to be just about as much as I could handle in the heat. In fact it was so very hot that I could not even summon the interest to head off to one of the village bars once we had returned to the van. It was a great pity that, bathing being currently prohibited, the showers down by the Plan d'Eau were out of commission. Had they been in use, I would have stood under one for the afternoon.

The heat in the van kept on rising despite all of the precautions that we had taken and so we were eventually driven out, cold drinks in thermal mugs in our hands, cat on back, to sit by the water under the shade of a tree and watch the swallows catching insects over the water.

We sat. I cannot say that we chilled. 

In time, I focused on the local council worker who had parked by the sanitaires. It looked as though he was fixing the showers... and then I noticed the string of little coloured buoys laid out along the plage.

"Do you think..." I said "... that he is getting ready to open the swimming?"


And so it proved to be. After turning on the water to the showers, the council worker stripped down to his trunks and set about marking out the bathing area.

I'll bet no worker ever enjoyed an afternoon at work quite so much as he must have done in that heat!

I'll also bet that nobody ever hit the water quite so fast after opening as did my DH.

I, alas, did not have a costume with me. He, however, has been living in swimming shorts so he just yanked his singlet off and dove in. He enjoyed another swim later in the evening too.