Once storm Nils had passed, within a few days storm Pedro arrived; more trees came down, the sound of chainsaws was everywhere as teams of orange clad men worked to clear the devastation. And still it rained. It had been raining for weeks already and showed no sign of stopping.

The river Adour in Dax swelled to many times its normal width, flooding the paths and little roads that run alongside it and all the underground car parks belonging to the riverside hotels had to be evacuated as they were inundated.

Most of the paths around the lake in St Paul were submerged. I went to have a look one day; the building from which they rent canoes and kayaks in the summer was inches deep in water, the path in front of it completely flooded, so I turned to take the steps leading up through the gardens. Halfway up the steps I noticed a sign marking the flood level in 2014, at least 1 metre higher than this year! It seems this flood was nothing special after all.

Eventually the rain stopped and the water level returned to normal surprisingly quickly, the “high tide” piles of detritus being the only remaining evidence of the flood.

Next we had a week of what felt like summer; 25°C in the afternoons. It was lovely, I’m not complaining, but that’s not normal for February. Now it’s back to normal; we’ve had some cold, misty mornings followed by lovely days, the birds are singing their little hearts out and spring is on the way.