France on fire
By no surprise, I find myself on holiday in a part of France at war, with fire.
Told on the international stage from the angle of displaced holidaymakers, the stories make for upset, not pain.
But pain exists.
The people who toil those fields. Their land, their livelihoods. If this tale is told by European campers frolicking in the waves, is it the truth?
There is not a single journey to France where I haven’t imagined setting down roots here. A little house, a quieter life, a version of me softened by the pace of it all. Could I buy a house and live here?
Such peace. Such beauty. Such croissants.
This time, though, a quiet. A shock. A sadness.
Less talk of making the move.
This looks like a country going to war with the climate in a visceral way, one that may eventually deter people from the poetry of summers in the south of France.
Wandering through non-bustling, people-less July holiday spots.
The locals have been reading the signals for longer. With the empty boulangerie evident in each village, perhaps they have known something was coming.
The look in a restaurateur’s eyes when we ask where the boulangerie is. Or the shop.
Just gone.
The staple village things no longer stapled.
A joke about the pounds saved. Something about how to survive sans croissant.
But the reality is far harsher.
A much bigger war with Mother Nature, fought against the most beautiful of backdrops.
A concert in a castle to watch the big son play in a band. The journey there strangely quiet. The truffle restaurant with only one other customer.
Nothing quite as it should be.
A breathtaking concert. Pin-drop moments, haunted by church bells tolling and the ever-present chorus of cicadas.
Oh, France.