Thunder

Thunder rolling all around the valley tonight and every time it rolls the starlings who hang out in the olive tree across the street, lose their voice and take flight.

Lots of noise, but not much rain yet.

Maury is in fact quite a bit noisier these days. There are two large home renovation projects on our street that keep the volume up from 8:30 – 5:00 except for the sacred two-hour lunch. Then at night, when the town is normally quiet, the Spanish harvest workers keep things lively with guitar music and what sound like furious arguments that always seem to end peacefully.

Harvest makes Maury feel like the center of the action, with everyone busy, intense and focused on wine. The weather becomes vital and is closely followed. Last night at the café Manu was advising some visitors to go to the beach Saturday because the winds will arrive Monday. People just know this stuff. This morning at the market, I mentioned to Thierry, the produce man that it was very quiet and asked him if it was normal for a Saturday. For a Saturday during harvest, he said. Everyone is in the vineyards. Went on to the fish truck to talk to Monica about grilling on a wood fire. She really has beautiful fresh fish including great oysters from Leucate and terrific mussels, not cheap but fair. She steered me to the salmon for grilling and how could I argue, buying two pieces, which was exactly twice as much as I needed.

There was a bit of rain but it seems to have passed, the guitars have come out and the chorus of starlings has returned.

Time for dinner.