7 days to act
Posted on | October 13, 2005
Have you seen recently a TV series, screend in France on M6, where a time machine permits a brave man to go back 7 days in the past in order to save the world from catastrophes?
If you haven’t, OK, at least you now understand the principle.
Good, that made us talk about science-fiction, now…
I would like to talk about it because I read a lot of it, in fact, since I first knew how to read. For example, during these harvests, I stated to read again «The Martian Chronicles» by Ray Bradbury, which I must have re-read three or four times since my fourteenth birthday — it’s marked on the top «to my brother on his fourteenth birthday, Hèlène» (one of my sisters). It was a very innovative book at the time, short stories about the colonisation of an unreal Mars, strange and poetic, an ode to the wind, a crystal ball, to the fragility of eco-systems. It is also a formidable charge against man’s ability to destroy everything, even himself…
The stories are short, the atmosphere slow, calm, in some ways the perfect book for harvests, for hardly in bed, one’s eyes close in two minutes…
OK, it’s not about all of that that I would like to talk to you but the story of «7 days to act ». In fact, I told myself this morning that it was marvellous that for just a few cents one could obtain a 7-day weather forecast that would more or less reliable… What progress for the ‘vigneron’! Thus, I know that from this morning that my week will pass fine: northerly wind, cloudy sky but no rain at the beginning of the week, beautiful sunshine Thursday and Friday. I am rassured. Even more, if it deteriorates, I could attempt to bring in the most grapes possible beore the hypothetical rain arrives because one can’t over-estimate the truth of these popular dictums: a man forewarned is worth two…
So, another marvellous thing that technology brings us today. The vignerons who preceded me possessed nothing of this and simply had their barometer to indicate the tendency. Perhaps they would detect other signs, that we no longer know how to detect. In the clouds? The trees? The behaviour of aquatic animals 
or family members? I doubt it but I adore the idea and continue to dream about it…
PS: 12 degreees on the thermometer this morning, one can tell that the air is fresher than fresh. This year, the refrigerated lorries will not return as much…
Hervè Bizeul
October 13th, 2005 @ 4:11 pm
Well, Hervè, it is not such a dream.. years ago I picked up a book in a second hand book store entitled Weatherwise - it was an attempt to test old dictums relating to the weather and their reliability. So, for example, “when ditches, drains or the midden heap stink something evil, there’s rain in the air for sure.” The author (Paul Goldsack) found this to be good around eight times out of ten. The book is full of weather predictions for different skies, barometric readings, winds from every direction and a few like this - which answers one of your specific questions (trees?): “When the leaves show their underside, be very sure that rain betide.” The author said this was: “True. It is one of the most reliable of weather lores relating to trees”and there are not many of them. A period of damp air, botanists say, helps to soften the stalks of leaves which then bend more easily in the wind when the rain is approaching.” I find it a difficult book to put down and enjoy dipping into it.
Another: “Seagull, seagull, sit on the sand, It’s ne’r good weather when you’re on the land. Reliability rating: 77.8 per cent. A total of 221 logged sightings of unusually large gatherings of seagulls far inland was followed by poorer weather on exactly 172 occasions.” Now, there’s dedication for you. I wonder if this works in Bordeaux?