The joys of living in south-west France this summer ……………….

This year the weather in our part of France has been, well, shall we just say "mixed" ……….

We've had glorious "shirt sleeve" weather in February, we've had thunderstorms and icy winds in May and temperatures ranging anywhere between 13C and 34C this month.  The only condition we seem to have missed out on so far is prolonged drought !!

We call it an "English summer" - sorry Scots, Welsh and Irish - Scotland "expects" icy winds throughout the year - as my brother, who lives in Angus says, everything over 17C is wasted - doesn't it rain every day in Wales  :roll: and Ireland is far too exposed to the Atlantic to be healthy ……………….. :pedal


Last night we had what I can only call, a "substantial" storm …………. :shock:

We'd had a yellow thundestorm warning from "Meteo France" - the national weather forecasting organisation - and all I can say is, what on earth does a red warning storm look like !!!

The "strobe" sheet lightning should have carried a health warning but did at least create enough daylight for us to see the 90-100 kmph winds carry off most of our outdoor furniture to deposit it in the adjoining field where it became "trapped" in a standing crop of lucerne (a type of clover), otherwise it might have continued it's journey.  Being essentially "sheet" lightning, we were spared most of the bangs and crashes normally associated with thuderstorms, more of a continuous heavenly rumble punctuated by the odd attempt to shake the house to bits on the offchance we may drift off into slumber.   The rain wasn't so much "rain", more like someone tipping huge buckets of water over the house.  Guttering was an unnecessary addition as torrents of water shot off the roof offering a pretty good imitation of Niagara Falls.  Then the lights went out.

I do have 2 old "Tilley" pressure lamps which we use when dining al-fresco on balmy summer evenings but they were in an outbuilding.  Venturing outside would have been foolhardy to say the least.  Regardless of being soaked to the skin within seconds, there would also have been a risk of being blown off your feet and, if one managed to avoid those two events, flying debris would probably have proved "third time lucky" ……….  The Tilley lamps remained in their shed whilst we sat by candle and torchlight discussing just how reliant we are on electricity.  I had spent the first 3 years of my teens living in a house with no electricity but we did at least have piped "Calor" gas lighting plus several of the Tilley pressure lamps so lighting, whilst not exactly at the flick of a switch, was at least available.

No lighting, no TV, no radio, no coffee (we now only use a Nespresso machine), tea would have meant boiling water in a saucepan - we have a gas kettle but it's in the outhouse with the Tilley lamps,  no internet and therefore no landline telephone, and, to my horror, almost nothing "downloaded" to any of our battery powered devices.  Well before my normal time, as Samual Pepys would have said "and so, to bed".

Of course, we didn't know what was switched on and what was switched off when we called it a day.  The electricity came back on at 1.30 this morning.  And with it, the TV, kitchen lights, flashing lights on the bedside clocks and outside PIR security lights !!!

Today has been spent clearing up.  It's now raining heavily again and we have another yellow thunderstorm warning in place for 2300 tonight !!

I may be gone some time …………………………. :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

Gas kettle in the house. . Tick, Tilly lamps in the house.  Tick

Sounds like your having a time of it Peter ! 
Do you have any guests in the Yurts ???
Do you have any Yurts ?

:shock:

In Scotland we call that Tues…… who am i kidding, that sounds mental.

Stay safe!

And if it happens again - get your phone out and record the Next "Video of the Month"

[user=2204]Breakage[/user] wrote:

In Scotland we call that Tues…… who am i kidding, that sounds mental.

Stay safe!

And if it happens again - get your phone out and record the Next "Video of the Month"

 

[user=2204]Breakage[/user] wrote:

And if it happens again - get your phone out and record the Next "Video of the Month"

That is if Peter remembers to charge his phone up before the electricity goes off again!

 We get storms like that with Golf to Cricket ball sized hail to boot.

If yer can't take a joke yer should'na joined  :roll:

It makes a change for someone else to be having a breeze and a bit of damp whilst it's sunny and dry up on t'ills.

That's one reason why I've kept and will keep my landline, together with an old fashioned phone that doesn't need elektricity to work.

[user=2220]Alan W[/user] wrote:

That's one reason why I've kept and will keep my landline, together with an old fashioned phone that doesn't need elektricity to work.

No such luck here in Oz , Alan when we go National Broadband Network. The home phone is over the Broadband so if power goes, so does the modem & phone line. Have to have a mobile service then…

….and hope that the network mast has an independent supply.

 :sad:

[user=2220]Alan W[/user] wrote:

That's one reason why I've kept and will keep my landline, together with an old fashioned phone that doesn't need elektricity to work.

Hi Alan,

Only until 2025 in the UK. The PSTN is being switched off after over 100 years of self-powered phones. We are going over to "Voice over internet" instead. Anyone without broadband will get a mini-broadband system included in their line rental. More info:

 https://business.bt.com/insights/digital-transformation/uk-pstn-switch-off/

To go on using old phones, you will need some sort of adaptor unit, and a power supply for the adaptor. i.e. you will need a mains socket near your phone socket (and no power cuts, although I imagine the adaptor will have some sort of internal battery backup for 999 calls).

cheers,

Martin.

Another change forced upon those who don't want it by big business.

I'm sure my current broadband provider will be pleased when I tell them that a decision by BT will cost them a customer.
 

Quite David,

My response is unprintable!!!

But from what I read, it doesn't matter who your provider is - you WILL go Digital.

I'm already digital. This post is going out on a 160GB/month mobile internet connection. All that will happen is that I will cancel my BT landline and the broadband service that runs over that.

I don't have a mobile - no need for one - and I couldn't get used to doing anything on those tiny screens. Although I note some big businesses are already refusing to do home delivery unless they have your mobile number!

I need broadband for ordering my click and collect groceries and other purchases, all done on 22" widescreen monitors.

I haven't had a landline for about 10 years now, when the power goes out I just go and loot the nearest shop front like everyone else 🤣

Im with BT, voip and fibre broadband here, no landline and if the fibre drops out for any reason there is a backup dongle that switches to the mobile network to keep phone and internet services running. Must admit I was unsure at first but its a very flexible system. I can choose to have calls ring in the house, on a mobile, on both or switch it to ring on another number or another mobile,  or several, go to voicemail after so many rings if not answered, or if I reject it. I can even transfer calls from home to mobile or mobile to home, or mobile to mobile ( if I figured out how  :hmm)
I can do all this, via the App from anywhere, at any time, even abroad as its all done via tinternet  :thumbs Oh and as its BT I can use any BT roaming, so can connect to any bt internet that takes part in the service, so many thousands of hotspots around the country. I very , I hardly touch my mobile data  allowance these days
Tis the Future I tell you  :pathead

Cheers

Matt

Got to admit, I would have loved watching that! I love a good thunderstorm. 
Hope nothing was damaged. 

As Sol said, we're on voip now and wish we weren't. We used to lose the internet sometimes in the old days, but still could use the phone (landline) to get in touch with the provider, but now we're up the proverbial without a paddle. As well as this, the modem supplied by Optus - a Singaporean company by the way, isn't reliable as it often drops out for no apparent reason and has to be shut down and re-started to get it going again.