Vent de terre

Yesterday's baignade was bracing. Strange, because the wind, coming off the land and heading for the sea, was actually hot, like that puff of superheated air when you bend down and open an oven, pulling back your head involuntarily when the heat hits you.

This morning, after a complicated search for beach toys (now definitely out of season) for grandson to use in his London sandpit, we ended up on the sandy Ponteil beach, the one with the wonderful view and the shallow water. The high buildings behind the beach protected us from the wind, and the sun was hot enough to make us sweat. Mindful of yesterday's sea temperature, the BH decided not to swim, but yours truly thought - publicly for purely visual reasons: blue sky, blue sea, brilliant sunshine on the Alps, but privately out of misplaced machismo - that a dip would be really nice.

I waded in, and as I did so, I saw the contortions of all the fellow bathers, male and female, as the waves reached for the sensitive parts of their anatomy. It was too cold to stay for long. The water was what Edinburgh east folk would call 'Baltic', pronounced boll-tukh in their peculiarly gracious patois. But why was it so cold? Nineteen degrees apparently, instead of a usual twenty-four.

My theory, unsupported by any scientific evidence, is that the offshore wind has driven all that lovely warm surface water past Corsica and on towards Africa. What we now need is a brisk onshore wind to drive back 'our' warm water, unjustly heating the northern coast of Sicily and Tunisia.