To rain or not to rain

3-10-2010
Originally uploaded by cspatrick

Monday, October 4, 2010 Day 96
I continue to be astonished at the inaccuracy of the weather forecasts. We planned a day at home today because the weather forecast called for strong wind and 80% chance of rain. At around 8:30, there was a bit of spit on the street below our apartment, but that was all we saw of the rain. Later the clouds moved out and the skies were sunny. Along the same vein, yesterday when we set out for Palavas-les-Flots we took along rain coats and umbrellas because the forecast called for rain. The wind blew, particularly down on the barrier island, and the skies were threatening all day, but as with today’s weather, there was no rain. I am accustomed to rain, rain, rain when the forecase calls for an 80% probablility of rain, but it seems that is not the case here. Who knows what that means!

Since the sky cleared up, I hung out shirts to dry and we left for another walk. Roger had noted on the bicycle rental map that there should be a rental stand not very far from our apartment and to the west, so we set out to find it. It was further than he had expected it to be, and across the Gambetta, which is a busy street badly torn up by workers laying tracks for the new tram line. We were disappointed that the bike stand had only a couple of bikes in it. It seems that there is not a very good redistribution plan for the bikes here, as several of the stands seem to go empty a lot. On the way back, we stopped at a boulangerie and bought some cookies and a brioche. The cookies we ate immediately, the brioche later. It was good, but not as good as baguettes – the texture is too soft. We explored some previously unknown streets and saw an intriguing spiral staircase outside a building. Unfortunately, I could not get far enough away from it to take a good picture through the fence, and with the fence in the picture, a good deal of it was obscured, but here is what I managed to get.

I have been reading a book for the book club, which meets on Friday. It is called “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. It is a delightful book about the German occupation of one of the Channel Islands during WWII. Definitely worth a read.