Ma météo personnelle [English translation]

The weather is changeable

Unsettled altogether

To the north a depression with a glacial front

It was always summer when we were together

Today I awake to the Northern blights

Yes your warm breath blew along my coastline

On the low relief of our sultry mornings

??? hold me tight

For another woman, I was just Le Havre

When you wanted Florida

There’s a sadness in the air

And the days are getting shorter

And tomorrow we’ll be celebrating St Swithin’s Day1

Some people send, when you go away,

Letters which are as sad as they are beautiful

But I’m sending you the satellite image

Of my personal forecast

I feel empty in the centre

I feel myself just as miserable

There will be showers from dawn to midday

My lips are cracking

And my cheeks hollowing

All you swore me

Where has it gone

At any rate, it’s gone

It’s evaporated

We see the oceans becoming swamps

What’s left then?

Steam, vapour

That you wipe off a window

A morning’s housework

There’s a sadness in the air

But values are dropping

And tomorrow we’ll be celebrating Groundhog Day2

Some people send, when you go away,

Letters which are as sad as they are beautiful

But I’m sending you the satellite image

Of my personal forecast

Yesterday for a change of air

I went for a couple of drinks

To the Barometer Bar

Immediate lightning-strike3

Seasonal precautions

No precipitation overnight over the national territory4

With even a chance of love in the air

The days are growing brighter

And fine conditions are returning

And tomorrow we’ll be celebrating St Valentine’s Day5

Some people send, when you go away,

Letters which are as sad as they are beautiful

But I’m sending you the satellite image

Of my personal forecast

Some people send, when you go away,

Letters which are as sad as they are beautiful

But I’m sending you the satellite image

Of my personal forecast

1. actually Sainte Clarisse’s Day, 12 August: known for the weather saying ‘s’il pleut à Sainte-Clarisse, c’est souvent comme vache qui pisse’ ie pouring2. actually St Agnes’s Day, 20 Jan: ‘jour de Sainte-Agnès, jamais trop de froid ne laisse’ ie winter past its worst3. ‘le coup de foudre’: love at first sight4. ‘L’Hexagone’: France (from the shape of its outline)5. ‘tel temps le jour de St Valentin, tel temps au printemps qui vient’, so a predictor for the spring: a bit like ‘in like a lion out like a lamb’, said of the month of March

• Artist:Patricia Kaas