Friday 5 September 2008

September storm / orage de septembre

Gabian, 2130h, 4.9.08

Yesterday evening the big thunderstorm which has been threatening for a few days finally arrived. For over an hour, just after dark, the sky was full of flashes of lightning and cracks of thunder, rain and hail fell, battering the windows so hard that I thought the glass would break.


Hier soir le grand orage qui nous a menacé pendant quelques jours est enfin arrivé. Pour plus d'une heure, juste après la tombée de la nuit, le ciel était pleine d'éclairs et de roulements de tonnerre. La grêle et la pluie battaient les fenêtres si fort que j'ai pensé que les vitres auraient cassées.


We worried about the vines in the area. The vendange (grape harvest) has started, but most of the grapes are still on the vines. Hail can damage them. This morning at Domaine des Pascales we were told that the damage had not been bad around Gabian, but perhaps was worse further up in the hills at Fos, Neffiès and Faugères.


On avait peur pour les vignes de la région. La vendange a commencé, mais la plupart des raisins restent sur les vignes. La gréle peut les abîmer. Ce matin au Domaine des Pascales on nous a dit qu'il n'y avait pas beaucoup de dommage à Gabian mais peut-être c'était pire sur les collines à Fos, Neffiès et Faugères.


There was less damage than we'd feared in our garden, too.

Heureusement il y avait peu de dommage dans notre jardin.




The rainbow chard was a bit battered, but it will recover:


There are more big tomatoes ripening, which will be ready to pick in the next day or so:

Our three lemons are still on the tree / nos trois citrons restent sur le citronier:

And a pepper is ripening - we'll have to make sure the thief doesn't get this one / et un poivron mûrit - il faut nous assurer que le voleur ne le prenne pas!


Not so good for the grapes, perhaps / pas très bon pour les raisins, peut-être


But it's been nice weather for frogs - mais il a fait du beau temps pour les grenouilles:



4 comments:

Anonymous said...

At least the frog is happy.
I like to drift gently into Autumn, not be swept there by a raging torrent! We are having similar weather in the UK and I'm getting tired of it.

Lavender and Vanilla Friends of the Gardens said...

I have experienced some terrible hailstorms when practically everything was destroyed, when the hail is bigger than golfballs. I am glad for your garden that it was not that bad. I hope the vendange was not to badly affected either.

Webradio said...

Hello !

Il a l'air bien garni Ton jardin...

Je reviendrai le visiter...

Anonymous said...

For once I am relieved that the weather man was wrong about storms over the weekend. Hail!! Bleck!! How I dread whenever we have them, as they always seem to arrive whenever the garden is just newly planted or much later when it's ready to be harvested. I love all of your photos, but most of all the frog! We could use some frogs to perk up are garden!