Tomorrow Never Comes

Bulletins from a French butcher's shop

In France you often come across fire hydrants on remote country roads, flashes of red plastic and metal placed seemingly far from urban needs. This summer it has become tragically clear that however many hydrants they have scattered in the wilds, they need so many more.

Here in the south-eastern mountains we’ve been spared the worst of another searing summer; a few minor blazes that were quickly controlled. You may all have read that other regions have not been so lucky.

Our latest drought broke this weekend, with several welcome downpours. But another heatwave looms, and with it the worry that what’s happening in the Gironde could so easily wreak havoc anywhere.

I look out of my office window at a steep hillside covered in forest. A discarded cigarette, a careless barbecue, a not quite spent firework, an idiot child – there are so many ways that parched undergrowth can hatch an inferno. Only a fool would not now be thinking of fireproof safes, of home extinguishers, of the fastest escape routes.

But are we living in fear? Of course not. As Chief Vitalstatistix of Asterix reknown always reminded those Gaulish villagers who famously worried that the sky might fall on their heads tomorrow: Tomorrow Never Comes.

We’ve been lucky enough to enjoy a hot but happy summer hosting family and friends, disturbed only by occasional whiffs of smoke from the other side of the lake. Now it’s our turn to take a break and we’re heading for the higher Alps: my wife and her sister racing a vintage Citroen across the highest mountain passes in Europe; me following at a more sedate pace, stopping to hunt for rare Alpine butterflies (my photo of an endangered Parnassius apollo, above) and ancient colonies of Griffon, Bearded and Egyptian vultures.

This blog will take a break for August. I hope you all have a summer free of sturm und drang, storm and stress, most of all of orange nonsense. Thanks for reading!