Call it luck or listening to your inner voice, I suddenly decide to change the hiking route and turn left. Maybe one hundred meters uphill and then on level ground I notice something unusual. Did this happen over a few days of rain and rich humidity? – the Mediterranean Heather plant giving a magnificent burst of color. Never seen it like this in nine years.

The Mediterranean Heather plant is known for blooming between October and February but you never know how long its intensity lasts. Tomorrow the whole scene might be different. When I write this, the rivers Nive, Loire and Rhône in mid-France are flooding land and towns, pushing daily life upside down. The climate crisis is everywhere.

The morning market in Cassis shows another burst of color palette – orange pumpkins, black and green olives, purple figs, blue and green grapes, yellow pears, red apples. You get it. Ah, autumn, sunny autumn that is. The sea doesn’t look quiet for the season but people rather play with its waves. Still, Cassis keeps looking as picturesque as it should.

If there should be one unifying challenge in the world it is the climate crisis. Here there’s too much water and somewhere else there is a lack of it – causing bad or no crops and a decline in drinking water. The least effort we can make is electing governments of reason and vision.

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