Fieldwork in testing weather
I spent the whole of the last working week in southern France doing fieldwork, with my fellow PhD student and friend Jacopo. I would call the weather conditions "character building". We saw heavy rain and lots of it, howling wind, clouds scudding across the sky, and snow. Only hail missed out on the party.
Autumn in Southern France.
Autumn hasn't progressed as far in those parts, and there was still plenty of colour to the trees. This makes sense because it is statistically warmer the further south you go. This week was an exception to the rule, though, because it was utterly, bone-chillingly, hand-numbingly freezing. We had to buy gloves to use in order to be able to do any work outside, and our work on various instruments involved yelling over the wind and rain and heading back to the warmth of the car whenever it was possible.
Christmas time in the town of St-Jean le Centenier.
Bat or holly? I say bat.
The towns everywhere are in full Christmas mode, with beautiful decorations all over the place. These included this one (above), in Saint-Jean le Centenier, which I was delighted to discover because I thought it was a bat. A bat, at Christmas time! How wonderfully random! It was even carrying something - a berry maybe? My world was shattered when I was told (kindly) that it's actually holly! Well ok, but I still think it looks a lot like a bat.
Lussas, a gorgeous little town.
At a community centre in Lussas.
Rain on the hills.
The purpose of this trip was to check on some instruments, and to bring the radar back to Lausanne. After waiting a day for the weather to pass, we ended up finishing packing the radar just as the cold wind started to contain flakes of snow. Having thus completed our tour of different trying weather conditions, we headed homewards. There was some mild concern that the "fête de la bugne" - a celebration of a local ear-shaped pastry - would mean constricted streets in the nearest small town, and therefore trouble getting the big trailer through. Luckily we passed through before the celebrations started in earnest, and we were on our way.
The white dots in this image are snow flakes.
Heading back to Lausanne.
It was a long drive back because with a big trailer you can only go at 80 km/h. It's nice to see the country-side, though, and we wended our way back into Switzerland and to Lausanne to rest and finally warm up properly.
Neat fields in Switzerland.