Baby, it's warm outside

Today is the winter solstice. That means that the earth's northern hemisphere has reached its maximum tilt away from the sun. The days will stop getting shorter and, not long from now, will start getting longer again. Phew!

There are still grapes in certain vineyard parcels. These are on the ground, but all around them there are grapes still hanging from the vines. Weird.

The weather is not great. We're having a wind storm with rain that will last through the day. Yuck. But it's not cold. In fact, it's unseasonably* warm. This morning's low is around 10ºC (about 50ºF) and the high is expected to get up close to 15ºC (about 60ºF). The French have an expression for just such an occasion: Noël au balcon, pâques aux tisons, which means "Christmas on the balcony, Easter in front of the fire." We shall see.

*Update: I just checked back through the blog and noticed that it's been warm like this for the past four or five years. So I suppose to say "unseasonably" warm is not quite right...