It was a recent post by Peter, who lives near where we used to live in the south of France, that made me realise that I'd become fed up with the extreme temperatures of that area. I suspect that, like most people, when you initially get to France you revel in the sunshine and heat but for me, after a fairly short time, the heat, quite often into the mid 30's, got me down and for a few weeks every year it could be downright unpleasant.
This got me thinking about what I really enjoyed about the weather there and what it finally boiled down to was the sunshine. My most pleasant memories are of being out and about in the middle of winter in bright sunshine and winter lunches on the kitchen terrace.
Despite very cold night temperatures in winter, during the day the weather wasn't too hot but it was pleasant and above all sunny. A stark contrast to what you could expect in the UK.
So what changed? Well, the weather did. For the last two years that we lived there the weather was different, not what we'd got used to. What we really liked was the temperate winter months, spring and autumn and that outweighed the more extreme heat of summer.
Just before we left the winter months became colder, windier, wetter and much less reliable, so my attitude changed. We weren't getting many of the benefits of a milder winter.
Now the first thing to say is that this view was only formed over a nine year period and it could just have been a blip and of course the weather will always be better on average than the UK.
The weather seems to be changing all over Europe so only time will tell whether this pattern will last.
In the meantime it was over 27C here today, hot and sunny, with more of the same forecast for tomorrow.
That's funny as Clive and I were talking about this yesterday too! Unfortunately your heatwave hasn't made it up this far and we had periodic rain and chilly temperatures. Friends in Cognac report 38C+ and we both agreed that we'd take the chill over the heat. Extreme heat made us both a bit cranky! (It doesn't take much).
ReplyDeleteThe sad thing is, as soon as you dust off the bbq and garden furniture the sun goes in and we get the greyness again. That's what I find so depressing about living in Derbyshire. The sunny spells are short lived so you have to frantically abandon all other plans and enjoy the sun while you can because you just know that it won't last.
ReplyDeleteJust goes to show, nowhere's perfect.
And I wish you hadn't metioned that song, I can't get it out of my head now !!
Jean - the song is the one that our local ice cream van plays every day, so we can't get it out of our heads either!
ReplyDeleteCraig it's not like you to be cranky.
ReplyDeleteJean I'm sorry but if I can't get it out of my head then I'm not going to be the only one to suffer.
You sound rather like a bloke who is on one of the expat fora down here in the PO. He reckons he's become a bit of an expert on how crap the weather is now, maybe you should have a chat with him about it one day?
ReplyDeleteI adore sunshine and cool, crisp winter mornings. Keep the hot days - I hate them! Fortunately, living up here we rarely get hot, steamy nights. (Do I need to re-write that bit do you suppose? )
Karen, you will soon get to realise that I am an expert on pretty much everything. I always say that you can put more layers on to keep warm than you can take layers off to stay cool, or something like that.
ReplyDeleteIt’s way too hot down here in the South of France at the moment. The only thing to do in the afternoons is to laze around, drink cocktails, eat sorbets or all three, and all this with with the fan on full blast. Then again I could always go for a dip in the pool, noooo can’t be bothered it’s too dam hot for that:)
ReplyDeleteHi Mark, good to hear from you.
ReplyDelete