Up and down in the heat

The temperature has risen sharply and over 40 degrees is forecast. I am joined at Roanne by Riccardo - his comment on an earlier post (May 27) indicates the sort of week I can expect.. We move east across a tangled series of ridges, each at about 700m. Somewhere we cross a major watershed - water now flows to the Mediterranean rather than the Atlantic. Harvest is underway on the lower slopes - this is a view as we start to climb out of the Loire valley. 

Then it is up and down over the ridges. The valleys with little villages like this one.

We are labouring hard in the heat! This bystander had the right idea - keep in the shade.

Riccardo takes a leaf out of her book and goes to sleep immediately.

They are both right! And we start getting going early, lying up in the afternoon, and doing a bit more in the evening. Here's the view from where we sleep out up on one of the ridges we are crossing. 

A beautiful evening and the strange and wonderful sound of Nightjars during the night. The moon is almost full and we both wake in the night thinking there is a searchlight on us. We are up at dawn and away by 5.30.

By mid-morning it's roasting hot again and we've dropped down and then climbed yet another ridge. The reward is a sighting on a forest track of a large, fast-flying butterfly, which I'm not sure I have ever seen before. The elusive Purple Emperor usually stays in the tree tops. I only managed to capture this view but saw its famous purple upper wing in all its glory as it flew away.