Ferocious winds and some rain most of the day today. The rectilinear streets of this 13th century bastide town make for strange wind patterns. For instance, I watched as a burst of rain would fall, reach the gutter on the three story post office, flow down toward the downspout but then, at the edge of the building where the wind from the cross street was furious, be spewed out of the gutter as from the mouth of someone drinking beer who gets punched in the stomach. Sort of. I always compare these rational, straight streets to those of nearby Albas, a far more interesting town visually, an Escher drawing of a town, its streets at many different elevations, curving...I never know where I am. In Castelfranc I always know where I am.
Anyway we lost our power which killed our heat without which the damp 18" thick stone walls of this old house drive you into your down sleeping bag within a half hour. So we decided to go shopping in Cahors where the streets looked like the floor of a forest so many twigs and branches had blown down from the inevitable plane trees which line Blvd Gambetta. The corpses of umbrellas testify to the big winds.
