I think of it as The Summer That Wasn’t – L’Eté qui n’a pas été.
Last month was the coolest July on record in 30 years and probably the grayest too. June saw two overheated days of about 100 degrees F. but otherwise there’s barely been a t-shirt in sight in Paris for the past two months.
Personally, I’m sick of it. Of course, if you read the blogs you know that it’s socially incorrect for an American to be sick of anything in Paris. Paris is perfect at every moment, they say, and we should be cheerful all the time and say that we ♥ Paris day in day out. Well I don’t heart Paris when it’s grey for all of June and July! And I don’t heart Paris when there are steel wool clouds overhead in August. If we’re going to suffer the consequences of global warming at least let me get a tan!
A friend of mine was visiting from Philadelphia in July and I couldn’t get him to agree that a daytime high of 65 degrees in July with the constant threat of rain was neither fun nor beautiful. Paris, I assured him, had seen better days. But for him it was already perfect. He kept saying how ideal the weather was (admittedly he’d been suffering through a long string of 100 days back home). He told me that being in Paris made him want to do nothing more than to walk around all day with a baguette in his hand. Unfortunately, walking around with a baguette in a drizzle is not a great recipe for anything but a soggy baguette. Still, he kept up his good cheer about the weather for five days, and then, without a single complaint, he left under a drizzle for Charles de Gaulle Airport. Two hours later I returned from an appointment to find him standing in front of my building. He’d gotten his passport stolen from his pocket on the way to the airport. He looked miserable. The sun shone briefly on the sidewalk.
On August 1 the sun was out, temperatures in the low 70s. I went out biking. The sky was a bit hesitant but finally, it seemed, summer had arrived. Same thing on the second. But by the third the steel wool was back overhead. The photo you see here was taken from my balcony at 1:25pm today, August 5. It’s warm enough to dare a t-shirt but too threatening to venture very far with a baguette.
Writing, as everyone knows, is a form of therapy, and many of the “I heart Paris” bloggers seem to be in highly medicated therapy. Still, they might be onto something. So I’m hereby giving myself some cheerful Paris blogging therapy by listing 5 reasons why I ♥ cool gray weather in Paris this summer.
5 Therapeutic Reasons Why I Heart Cool Gray Weather in Paris This Summer
1. Great sleeping weather. Window open, my winter comforter still on the bed, I’ve been sleeping great and then have plenty of energy through the day, except when I take a nap, because it’s great napping weather too!
2. Fashion has remained in the closet. Other than the fashion this summer of white tennis shoes, which, as a tennis player, I owned anyway, no significant fashion statements were able to take hold in Paris this summer because it’s been too cool to wear them. We can all be thankful for that. (Those plain knee-length shorts with stuffed pockets that we see walking about are actually old news.)
3. Think of all the café money I saved. With no desire to sit outside in a café because no hot days to draw me to a $6 soda and no hot nights to inspire friends to call at midnight to say that they’re in my neighborhood, would I like to meet them for a drink, I’ve probably saved a few hundred euros in café expenses over the past two months. Then again, maybe I don’t have any more friends who stay out late because they’re all getting old, which would mean that I’m getting old. But I’m backsliding a bit in my therapy there, so suffice it to say that I think the weather gods for saving me money this summer.
4. The grapes are happy, and that should make us all happy. A warm dry April and May followed by a cool wet June and July makes for happy grapes in early August. Provided that major rainfall holds off for the next 3 or 4 weeks so as not to bloat the grapes, it’s going to be a good, early harvest. Which reminds me that I visited three wine regions last month—Champagne, Burgundy and Saint Pourçain, which sounds more like a cheese—so it hasn’t been such a bad summer after all. Which further reminds me that I’ll be leading an organic Wine & Dine walking tour on late afternoon and evening of Wednesday, August 11. Those who would like to join can write to me for more information through the France Revisited Contact page.
5. We’re never alone when we talk about the weather. There’s no greater way to feel connected with others than to talk about the weather because everyone relates to the subject all the time. I’ll post on Facebook “68 degrees and cloudy in Paris” and within three hours 25 of my bestest friends in the whole world will commune with me by posting temperatures around the globe. Before long we all want to join Annie in a chorus of “The sun will come out, tomorrow…” Sing along!
© 2011, Gary Lee Kraut
Great post, Gary. It’s usually the same weather in London too so I whine all the time. Today is nice and sunny so I was outside in the deck chair (‘working from home’ I told the office) then decided it was too hot so I had to come inside.
Thanks, Elizabeth. Ten minutes after I posted that the heavy steel wool moved on and a big sheet of shiny aluminum foil took its place, but I’m confident that the rain will come as soon as I decide to go out biking.
I can relate to woes about weather. Can’t play tennis when the court is wet, hard to play when it feels like 100 degrees, but give me dry 60-80 days and I’m in my glory.
I’ll send you some of our heat waves to warm you up.
erk
On my and my husband’s very first night in Paris, eleven years ago, it poured. The downpour chased us into a bistro for a pastis. Our waiter pointed to someone outside swaying in the downpour, and gave us the twist the nose sign for one who is somewhat inebriated. It was a miserable night, but he made us laugh. We have come back almost every year since and the weather does not matter a bit. J’adore Paris, especially in September.
I agree about the weather – depressing! I don’t think I’m considered one of the “I heart Paris” bloggers who thinks Paris is perfect. In fact, I have (im)perfect in the title of mine!
Call a spade a spade (a gray day a gray day). Don’t you have some traveling to the sunny South you could do for an article or something? 🙂
Hi Gary,
It’s been too hot here although we have had many “pretty” days. But the heat is slowing me down this year. I don’t feel I’ve been out of the air conditioning long enough to adjust. Today, it was 88 degrees F. Tonight, at 10 P.M. when we walked our dogs, it was still 80 degrees. Today, the heat wiped me out at a picnic where there was no swimming in a lake….Swimming would have made it all more enjoyable!
Let’s send you some heat and sun! We’ll trade you for some clouds for a few days.
When we lived in South Carolina years ago, we thought we were chilly if it went below 80 degrees! New Jersey is usually a more moderate climate. Usually we have a hot spell of maybe a week or two max. Then normally we get a break. Hmmmmm. Global Warming? After a very cold winter, here we go with another hot summer this year. We’ll send you some……
Alana DuBois
I was in Paris for the June 100 degree days and it was not so fun. We left Paris on the 13th of July to be in Portland Oregon for one of the coolest summers I have ever had here! We don’t even have red tomatoes yet!!!!! The weather is so mixed up!!