The Barbecue of Summer 2022
Part I The roasting started early June when the first heat wave hit France. We humans were being baked with average daily temperatures above 35 ⁰ C (95 ⁰ F), and commonly in the 40s during the afternoons. To add insult to injury, not a drop of rain. This hellish situation is the new normal along the rim of the Mediterranean Sea. Nimes, the capital of our county ( department in French bureaucracy) has earned the unsavory title of France’s hottest city: 60 days above 30 ⁰ . This is actually inaccurate: temperatures were above 35 ⁰ ! Consequently, wildfires were ravaging entire regions and water is so scarce that it is being rationed in many villages. Blame global warming, climate change, people’s green gas emissions, run away and profligate consumption in industrialized countries, etc.., and you get this beastly cocktail which makes life in Provence feeling no longer Proven รง ale. Even the Cicadae, the true symbol of Provence, were too stres...