Holiday In France
Entry posted by Thundery wintry showers
446 views
The holiday in France was actually quite a good one- mainly spent around the swimming pool and messing about, sitting around in the sun (though I usually went in the shade to avoid sunburn) and playing table tennis. And also, getting lots of posh ice-creams. The first week was spent in the eastern Dordogne near Perigueux, the second not far from Magny-Cours.
Some good visits to various places- my favourite was Chenonceau, which had a good castle and outdoor area, a boating area and a maze.
The weather was very hot, especially in the second week. In fact, the second week, at 35-40C, was a very close approach to the ridiculous heat of my French holiday in August 2003, and I generally spent very little time outside between 1 and 5pm on those days. The first week (Dordogne) had scattered thundery showers dotted around but we missed them all; however the second week had two big thunderstorms, of similar nature to what the Dordogne storms are supposed to be like (strong gusts of wind, then a few hours of frequent lightning strikes and heavy rain). Without doubt, the biggest storms I've experienced so far. Although 35-40C is still far too extreme for my liking, I think I coped a lot better with it than I did three years ago, when I felt ill after going out into it for just two minutes.
In Leeds, there's not much going on, most of the other students are stressed out with worrying about getting their projects finished on time, though I had an evening out playing pool and drinking Coke yesterday.
Allegedly, Cleadon (Tyne & Wear) has not experienced much in the way of sea-fret, unlike last month, so when I get the July records in, it could well turn out to have been a scorcher. I reconstructed my earlier weather records by comparison with nearby stations to work out how hot the months of 1994-1997 were, and came out with August 1995 as the month to beat (estimated max 22.7, min 11.9, mean 17.3) so that's what July 2006 has to beat.
5 Comments
Recommended Comments