Lazing by the lake

I was sitting in the shade reading, LoJ was swimming and this Scarlet Dragonfly (Crocothemis erythraea) was posing on a reed by the water's edge at the Barrage des Olivettes. A fairly early morning outing before the temperature rises at it is now during the afternoon, although we haven't the canicule - heatwave - that is hitting parts of France to the west and north of us. Here we're having normal summer heat - about 35° C during the day and 24° at night and it's bearable because it's so dry.

Another exciting sighting at the lake, my first for this variety of butterfly, was this Two-tailed Pasha (Charaxes jasius) - huge, the size of a small bird, and very beautiful.

Home to make salad for lunch and thanks to the wonder of Blip I made something I wouldn't have dreamed of until yesterday: garlicky watermelon and goats' cheese salad as mentioned by freespiral, all the way from West Cork to the Languedoc. It was delicious!