France

[Jardiniere]

yes its been hot here too...very annoying as the previous two weeks were wet and quite cold.We swept the chimney and lit the fire one night (to check it but also because it was cold!). The pool went green - no idea why we had been looking after it properly so now when the weather is lovely again we cant swim cos the pool is full of Flash! which is basically bleach - its lovely and blue again but dont fancy swimming in it. Tomatoes got blight, courgettes rotted. Still shouldnt grumble ....

[Nicos]

...and in that short time...it,s started raining and lightning!!!!!

[BertieFox]

Thunderstorms here overnight (Loire valley) and the tomatoes have all been blighted during the last week. Even some aubergines affected. Dwarf and climbing beans still producing, and too many courgettes of course. Good year for butternut squashes though. Has anyone else noticed vast numbers of dragon flies and damsel flies this year? Never seen anything like it! Any thoughts on cold/mild winters, as I have yet to get all the wood under cover for the winter... hope we don't need as much as last winter!

[Jardiniere]

dont know how old you are bertiefox but I'm retired and really pissed off that my winter fuel allowance is going to be cut because france is TOO HOT in the winter for us to qualify for a winter allowance! It gets very cold here ...we've just stacked the wood that we bought this year (8 steres -60 euros a stere) and we only have a log burner (Godin Chatelaine) for heating (it cooks too). Got 8 stacked up from last year and some odds and ends from trees that we've cut down over the last couple of years and are just hoping that we will not have to burn into this years supply too early. So £200 was a great help. We arent rich - just pensions ....no investments/offshore accounts so quite cross. Cant even vote the b******* out.

[BertieFox]

Yes, absolutely agree about winter fuel allowance which we only started getting last year, only to find it's going to be taken away again (subject to another appeal to the European Court I would imagine.) From what I've read, it will still be in place for this year/2014, but I'm not sure if we have to apply every year, being "foreigners"!! I hope you have signed the Connexions newspaper on line petition about this! Like you we depend on wood for heating with a Deville log stove which heats our water and a couple of radiators. We work all winter cutting up wood and all autumn cutting down dead trees and so on to get more, so it would be nice in our old age to actually have some help in buying some decent chestnut or even oak, rather than burning poplar and alder all the time!

[roitelet]

Never heard such a load of nonsence! France too hot!!!!!!!!!!!! When I lived in the West Country we rarely had frost, now we can have temperatures as low as -20C. Where did the Chancellor go to school? Didn't he learn about continental climate?

[roitelet]

Petition signed!!!!! in blood, his I hope.

[PyreneesPlot]

One of the reasons why we live in a very dull modern house was the potential future heating cost, and the assumption that state pensions and allowances from the UK would dwindle in value, if not disappear completely for non-residents.
As a self-build we were able to design in such a way that the sun warms us and and our levels of insulation are way over the legal requirements. Despite the cold and snow, we consistently only burn 2 stere a year, a mix of bought in beech and oak, and our own birch and ash. We have electric heaters; my mum used the one in her bedroom for an hour in the mornings last Christmas, the only time any of them have been used. Come to think of it, that one may be the only one actually wired in!
But I'd so love to have an old house with character!
Fingers crossed for a mild winter, and I never thought I'd say it, but could we have a bit less snow this year, please?

[PyreneesPlot]

Just realised what an unsympathetic sounding post /\/\/\ that was, which was not intended.

[Nicos]

we consistently only burn 2 stere a year,
But I'd so love to have an old house with character!

I sometimes wish we'd had enough sense NOT to buy one!!
We burn 10 steres a year and pay over 2K€ in fioul a year

Although we're slowly renovating our interior, it IS a longhouse with more outside walls that the Great Wall of China!...and we keep it at 18-20C during the day for most of the winter( you can't have it less when you have paying guests eh?)

A warm winter would suit us very well too this year!
..and nope- we're too young to get a UK heating allowance

[BertieFox]

People also tend to forget that winter fuel allowances were originally introduced in 1997 at a time just before pensions were upgraded roughly in line with the cost of living. It coincided with Gordon Brown's notorious "75p pension increase" and was simply a fig leaf to disguise the fact that pensioners were outraged by such a low increase.
So the winter fuel allowance was never an 'extra benefit' handed out by a munificent government but a way of disguising an extremely mean policy which left pensioners worse off. To talk about taking it away from so many of us is outrageous. They have already changed the annual 'cost of living' increase for pensions from RPI to CPI, which is regularly 1% or more LESS and the RPI mirrored more accurately pensioners' actual expenditure. We don't tend to buy too many Ipads and Iphones which figure in the CPI measure!

[Nicos]

Just spotted this!

carte des jours avec gelée 0° en France

49 days on average for us apparently!...I'm sure that's my neighbour's garden they are talking about...we are in a frost pocket/wind tunnel

[Jardiniere]

47 where we are ...but i think this winter was a bit milder

[PyreneesPlot]

41 for us, but I think the figures might be slightly skewed by the pointy snow-covered things at the head of the valley! Looks as though we've only had half a dozen frosts this winter and no lying snow, either. But there's always May.
Interesting site :-)

[scarey55]

Just on the left hand side of the blue bit in the middle