OK, we’ve been here at Fanjeaux on the sheep farm for 11 days. Our original plan was stay here 18 days catching up with friends, not only campsite owners Luc and Nadine but also other regular camping visitors. However, the other regular camping visitors have not materialized. Instead, they all seem to have decided en masse to visit in July when we’ll be heading back north. Could it be that someone warned them we’d be here in June? 😀
Whatever, our first 6 days or so here were bathed in glorious sunshine and warmth/heat, depending upon your personal calorific scale. This week, however, has seen a downturn in the weather and the uncomfortable truth is that we’ve been here so often and for such periods of time that without our camping companions it’s all turned a bit samey. So, we took the decision to travel to Spain a week earlier than originally planned and have two weeks there instead of just one, leaving Guillaume in France in the hands of our camping hosts.
This week, though the weather has been less than settled, the three orages [storms] we’ve experienced have very thoughtfully been overnight. Now, I don’t really mind overnight rain; in fact, I find the thrumming/hammering of rain on Guillaume’s roof quite soothing in a cossetting kind of way. Yesterday (Thursday), which was actually quite pleasant, even if very windy, we told Nadine that we’d be heading for Spain on Saturday. That left today (Friday) for all our packing and securing of Guillaume – things such as taking down his awning.
Wouldn’t you just know it? This morning we woke to gentle rain, rain that was very English in nature. Very English in nature not only in the fact that it was less than a tropical downpour, more irritation rain than anything, but also in the way that it went on … and on … and on. We visited Limoux market in the morning and the dripping continued. We called into Bram for tonight’s supplies and still it dripped. Why today of all days? If it wanted to rain in the daytime, almost any other of our first 18 days in France would’ve been OK but today was the worst timing possible. I’d got about 12 square metres of saturated awning material to fold up and stow away, for Darwin’s sake! Today, I really could’ve done without the persistent dripping.
It did actually stop in the early afternoon and, though no blazing southern French sun emerged to dry the awning properly, it did seem to more or less dry off once the dripping had ceased, at least well enough to roll it loosely and stuff it in Guillaume’s shower tray for the duration of his abandonment.
It is my experience that meteorological events have an unerring sense of timing when it comes to screwing one up.
“You wanna pack up? I’m gonna rain.”
Just watch what happens to the wind speed and direction when you plan to start towing a caravan all the way back up France towards an appointment with a channel ferry. 😉
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