Les giboulées de mars?

The giboulées de mars are what we would call April showers, except that the French version occurs in the month of mars (March). And as you can see from the photos above of flowering plum trees, March showers bring March flowers here in Macau! Yippee!!

When I left Boston a week ago, I watched out the window of the plane as snow plows cleared the tarmac and runways for take off. Lucky for me, I just narrowly escaped another 10 or so inches of snow and a cancelled flight out of Siberia, where there was still nary an inkling of green or of flowering vegetation. Morning after morning of 20°F temperatures were really starting to wear on me (sorry to those of you reading this in colder climes--I hope it's starting to warm up!), so it was a pleasure to step off the puddle-jumper of a plane from Madrid and to feel the cool but decidedly more temperate Bordeaux air against my un-gloved, un-scarved, un-hatted self. Though it's still technically winter by the calendar, spring is springing in Southwest France as far as I'm concerned!

Today is sunny and warm, about 15°C (59°F), and not a particularly typical day in March, meteorologically speaking (though I'm not complaining). The giboulées create some seriously fitful and erratic weather patterns as far as I can tell. Nearly every day last week went as follows: glorious sunburst, sudden gust of unyielding wind, foreboding gathering of charcoal grey storm clouds, heavy rain, hail, pause, replay glorious sunburst, etc. Whoa! I (and Mark Twain) thought New England weather was fluctuating, but I've never been so dizzy and confused from the weather as I was from these giboulées de mars!

Though I'm sure the rain and hail and high winds will be back, the forecast calls for sun and temperatures in the upper 60s for the rest of the week. Hooray for spring! Time to go outside...