Arty

We went on our annual trip to the art weekend in Albas today. We'd decided to arrive as soon as it opened, at 11 a.m., in the hope of avoiding the worst of the heat. But first we had a job to do. Yesterday an electrician came to fix a problem in the fusebox. All went well; it only took him about 15 minutes. But later in the day I discovered that the instant water heater in the kitchen was no longer working. Coincidence? I think not. S phoned him and he said he'd come and sort it on Monday, while expressing scepticism that it was related. 

Worse was to come though -- at bedtime I switched the dishwasher on to find it was dead as a doornail too. Of course by definition it was full of dirty dishes, and we now had no hot water to wash them in, unless we washed them in the bath. So this morning, with the aid of several kettles of water, we had to empty the dishwasher and wash all the dishes by hand in our extremely small sink. And will have to continue doing this all weekend :(

In Albas we went round all the exhibits with a couple of breaks for refreshment. It wasn't as enjoyable as last year. The only art I wanted to take home was Marc Déotte's photos of dilapidated caves coopératives -- but I already bought a print, and his book, when he was last here two years ago. So I restrained myself. There were not many visitors -- certainly the heat will have put people off trudging round the streets. Maybe they should consider moving it to spring.

Once we were done, we bought poké bowls from one of the food trucks and ate them sitting in the shade (saves washing up). It was 1:30 by now and oppressively hot, so we decided to head straight home. The car, parked in the sun, said it was 40C. Driving home we saw a bruise of smoke in the sky, which turned out to be a fire just the other side of Alaric from us, caused by a vehicle on the autoroute catching fire.

At home we ate ice cream and heard the constant drone of Canadairs. I popped out later to have a look -- remarkably there were occasional heavy drops of rain falling from the sky, certainly not enough to put out a now 100-hectare fire. It did look as if they were starting to get it under control. As well as five Canadairs, one Dash, and two helicopters, I saw about 50 squawking jackdaws sitting in a tree, and, very unusually, a hare running across a vineyard -- all disturbed by the fire and associated activity, I should think. I can't hear any planes now, which is encouraging.

I've put a bunch of extras in -- I will probably remove them within a week or so as I'm running short already! Extra 1: the fire as seen on the way home.  Extra 2: my attempt to catch a Canadair and a pylon together! Shame I was a bit far away. The others are not-art in Albas -- get the shiny green Mehari, absolutely immaculate!