C'est un catastrophe!

That is how our neighbour Claudine describes the events of the past 24 hrs. You have to go back to records for the 1940s before you find an equivalent snow fall for the month of May - over a metre in the space of 24 hours. The snow avalanched off our roof several times during the night which made exiting from the house somewhat interesting this morning!
The damage caused by the shere weight of snow is extensive. The mobile phone network is down as is the ADSL broadband but fortunately the land line is working again this evening so dial up access is possible. The electricity is on and off, on and off but we have not been totally without power for much longer than an hour so far, whereas I gather that the town of Foix has sustained more prolonged outages. We're lucky!

This morning, we checked out our little road, playing russian roulette with the snow falling from the trees. It was obvious that the plough would be unable to make its way up to Pissou until the fallen trees and branches were cleared. Sure, it is the commune's responsibility, but we reckoned that they would have their work cut out so we set to with the chainsaw, ably assisted by Claudine and within a couple of hours our section of road was clear and, as if on cue, J-P rocked up in the plough just half an hour after we had finished. Good timing! The one good thing to come out of this is that we will now have enough wood to comfortably see us through at least another winter (one it has dried of course). But the clear up has only just started. Temperatures are now rising and the snow will start its slow melt. That in itself will bring its own set of problems. Hurrah for Spring!