HAIL TO THE GRELLE

PARIS VS. WEATHER. WEATHER WINS.

We had a storm of hail in Paris yesterday; a shower of what the French call grelle. Not a common occurrence, at least not with the intensity of this one. We who live on the roof of the city just gaped as lumps of ice the size of golfballs battered our windows and sent tourists in the street below running for cover.

If I needed more proof of how French I’ve become, this surprise at bad weather would provide it. In my native Australia, things falling from the sky were a daily occurrence. You get blasé. “It’s raining frogs!” “Oh? Big ones?”

Living in rural England further accustomed me to extremes of weather. “A bit nippy,” an Englishman says as icebergs appear in the Channel. “Could be a long winter,” they suggest, as the glaciers return.

Yesterday’s grelle reminded me of a French Christmas many years ago.

For almost a week, storms had battered us, targeting with particular force, it seemed to me, the 16th century farm where we were spending the holiday. Hail rattled like gravel against double-glazed windows, beyond which the landscape dissolved in a grey murk of near-horizontal rain.

Meal over, older guests had reconvened at the other end of the house to gossip with my wife's aunt who, as mayor of the village, was custodian of its centuries of scandal. A creak from overhead signalled that a couple of younger cousins had sneaked off for some illicit sex in one of the tiny bedrooms wedged under the eaves, where the bedsteads, carpentered from local timber early in the 19th century, topped with sheets of linen and quilts stuffed with goose feathers, were drenched in generations of erotic history.

But what had become of our friend Paul, the sole Englishman at table? I hadn't seen him since he helped clear away some of the dishes. If he had any sense, he was probably, like me, getting ready for a post-prandial snooze.

Settling deeper into the chair, I eased off my shoes and closed my eyes....

Paul appeared in the doorway. Rubbing his hands together, he peered through the window into the freezing mist and sleet.

"Looks like it's clearing up," he said. "Fancy a stroll?"