Just to prove it's not all sunshine and beach and beautiful Old Town, this is what happens when we have two days of solid rain, following a long dry spell. Rocks litter the roads, trees fall, electricity lines are cut, Jilly has no internet connection. You'll perhaps remember the rain from the Sospel pics. The day after I took those Sospel photos, a beautiful pine tree fell on the road above my house - here you see a small part of it littering the top of my track: this after the electricity and phone people had come along, chopped up the tree and got everything going again. That's my mailbox on the left, shared with three others in this tiny quartier of ours - the main part of the gone-forever-pine lies on road above, jumbled up with phone and electricity wires.
About four years ago - in November - we had three weeks of rain - many gardens lost a lot of trees, swimming pools went sailing down hillsides and a couple of houses got smashed to bits by water, rocks and debris.
Come back tomorrow and I'll show you what some guys did on the road above me today.
About four years ago - in November - we had three weeks of rain - many gardens lost a lot of trees, swimming pools went sailing down hillsides and a couple of houses got smashed to bits by water, rocks and debris.
Come back tomorrow and I'll show you what some guys did on the road above me today.
Sometime ago, we were riding on one of the nice (and wild) bike paths in the Greater Boston Area, a lovely place filled with lush vegetation and lots of pine trees. It hadn't been raining, but one of the pines had decided it was time to go so it went, right there, about a hundred meters from where we and a bunch of other people were! You'd think it'd make a lot of noise. It didn't! We just heard a loud snap and then a very deep, weird sound when the top of the tree hit the ground. Only a hundred meters away... Scary moment. We all looked at each other and laughed and sighed and counted our blessings.
ReplyDeleteI was once taught that you can fight the water all you want, and you can try to stop it, but you can't and it will always win. I am sorry about the tree and your troubles with rain. We need rain here... lots of rain.
ReplyDeleteThanks,
Wayne
Ah yes winter storms. We have those too, here on the Oregon Coast. During a visit to the "American Riviera," (Santa Barbara) following a big storm, I once watched an older gentleman take a small hand saw to a downed, 50-ft. Eucalyptus tree. He may be there yet. Hope your neighbors were more sensible?
ReplyDeleteThat's a bit of a nasty contrast to the three previous posts. I guess you don't look forward to bad weather then.
ReplyDeleteThat must have been a real torrent of rain on your dry, scrubby ground to do that.
ReplyDeleteThe ugly (and terror-filled) side of hill-side living.
ReplyDelete--steve buser
New Orleans Daily Photo
Wow Jilly. So glad that the chaps came along so quickly and fixed things for you. Do you have an open fire to put some of those logs into?
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear nobody was hurt.
ReplyDeleteI guess you have electricity and internet now. Yeah! :-)
impressionnant les dégâts ;o(.
ReplyDeleteFenix, you had a very narrow escape there!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much everyone for the comments. We need rain and I look forward to it but when we've had no rain for ages, and then we get a lot, it's too much for the already loosened and weakened tree roots, and up they come, rocks tumble etc. Nice gentle rain would have been better!
Fortunately, as you'll see from tomorrow's posting, the neighbours haven't had to chop up the tree - it was done by the local council.
Darn! This place is so magical, surely you don't have weather problems! Interesting post.
ReplyDeleteWe've just had a spate of terrible weather...with the resulting horrendous landslides, flooding, loss of homes and even lives. Thankfully it's all over now...we hope!
ReplyDeleteIt just goes to show that every paradise has it's share of bad weather! :-D