Washed away

Spring in the south of France is always unpredictable. One minute we can be sizzling in temperatures well into the thirties, as last week, the next bombarded with massive hailstones or thunderstorms of biblical proportions. Saturday night brought the latter, and with some pretty horrible consequences for some in this area. We were lucky, though we didn't know it at the time, the electricity went off for hours, and we had three rooms flooded to ankle deep...lots of hassle, but no lasting damage. Our poor neighbours, just half a kilometre up the lane, were not so lucky. The hills that surround this place channeled the rain down into a newly formed river that belted through their property, taking out their fences, car, newly installed fosse septique , newly planted garden and veggie plot and rising to knee height in their 'almost finished renovated' one storey house. Everything ruined. And the worst of all, they were three days away from signing off the project to qualify for full insurance cover.

Doesn't bear thinking about.