We're melting, how are you?

Yes, summer weather has arrived with a vengeance, with temp pushing 100F, upper 30sC. In anticipation of this hot spell, we bought ourselves a small (and very noisy) "portable" air conditioner to use in our bedroom so we can sleep at night. It's been a treat that we're sure will be reflected in our next electric bill. Since it hasn't rained for quite a while now, the ground is cracking, especially on the South Forty where there's not much shade, and plants, potted or in the ground, are struggling to get enough water.

Lately we've been enjoying a little stay-at-home spell, after a couple of weeks busy with visitors, friends, and events. We did attend another marché de producteurs, where you select your the bits of your meal being sold by local producers and eat it on the spot. At the previous one, there was someone tending a grill to cook your meat. This one was do-it-yourself; the grills were smaller and struggled to stay lit in the wind. But we had a nice time and came home with plants, a jar of  jam, and a bottle of haberñero sauce made locally.

We attended a mandolin concert at the church in Montbron, which turned out to be surprisingly good. It seems there is a whole repertoire of "classical" music for mandolin!

August 15 (Assumption Day) is our commune's fête. We skipped most of the daytime activities this year, but attended the dinner and the fireworks display afterwards. During the dinner, we were entertained by a singing accordion player:

When we decided to have most of the walls of the house stuccoed, we thought to save a bit of money by not doing one wall of the bedroom. But Ed found that pressure cleaning that wall didn't really improve the appearance, so we've now had that wall stuccoed also. It looks very nice. Meanwhile Ed is busy repairing the wood and painting the kitchen porch prior to replacing that roof and sealing where it joins the house.

Kaye's mostly been staying inside trying to deal with the excess of zucchini from the garden. Every time she thinks she's got it under control, a new batch comes in. There's no more room for various zucchini soups in the big freezer and we're out of containers anyhow.