Light and heat

A limited choice of subjects today, as I stayed at home all day. I had a lie-in to recover from yesterday's exertions. The light on this lavender caught my eye when I went to hang the washing out (when I took it in later, it was as hot as if it had been in a tumble dryer). Temperature: 39C.

Meanwhile, wildfires were sparking off. First near Lagrasse, relatively easily contained. Then seven fires started almost simultaneously close to the autoroute near Narbonne. Luckily there was only a light breeze, but it took hundreds of firefighters and multiple planes to fight it all day and well into the night: a total of 420 hectares of garrigue destroyed, plus most of a campsite. You may find this hard to believe, but it was caused by someone towing a trailer with a lit barbecue in it. There is clearly no limit to human stupidity. He's now been arrested.

Meanwhile S was in the Pyrenees on a very hot, steep walk that involved clambering over boulders a lot of the time. Not ideal in the conditions, and his dodgy knee was complaining. He wasn't alone in throwing in the towel before they got to the end, and rested next to a lovely lake while waiting for the others (extra). 

I was a bit surprised when he Whatsapped me to say they would be late back because they were doing a detour to avoid the fires, since there was no reason for them to be passing that way. It turned out driver A-M had too much information from Google and decided to do a long and somewhat illogical route along back roads, when it would have been OK to use the autoroute most of the way. Still, they eventually got back to Lézignan, and S then got stuck in a jam of diverted traffic and ended up doing a U-turn and coming home via narrow back roads. We then chilled with a drink and the salmorejo I'd made earlier. More heat forecast for tomorrow.