Finally Summertime!

One thing about living in France is that it now leaves me completely perplexed when Americans start talking about summer as being already underway in June. Summer in France is July and August, period. School does not get out until the very end of June and starts up again in early September, and all of France revolves around the school year, whether one has children in school or not. Even the date our income tax declaration is due is based on which "school vacation zone" we live in, and every year in September the 8 o'clock news focuses on "la rentrée" which is "back to school" time and all that implies - maybe I'll go into more detail on that in September.

So, now it is July, and summer has finally begun, and we at last have the weather to go with it as well (rare in our cold northern climate). I'm very grateful for my new office ceiling fan. With some strategic opening and closing of the shutters and windows on different sides of the house, we manage to keep the downstairs cool enough. Upstairs in the attic rooms is a different story, so we keep our fans on all night.

Due to the sudden heat wave (high 80s, I know that doesn't seem that hot to some of you, but when you are used to 60s/70s throughout the summer, 80s feels very hot!), there were no more swimming pools at the store. So Frederic managed to patch up last summer's pool and we got it out for the boys on Thursday.

Noah was not even close to as apprehensive about it as Benjamin was the first time. To be fair, Benjamin was a bit older the first time, so maybe that had something to do with it.

Our water comes from a well in our village, and it is coooollld! But it was hot enough yesterday that the boys weren't shivering blocks of ice when they got out like Benjamin always was last summer. No need for a bath to warm them up this time.

Now we wait to see how long the summer weather will hang around.