Feeling chilly

London woke up to a blanket of snow this morning and things are feeling pretty arctic down here in Salento this evening, too. It’s common for English people to come here thinking that it warm all year round here when in fact we do get some pretty nasty weather at times. The more countries I have visited in my life, the more I have observed that there is no such thing as the perfect climate.

We opened our shutters to a typically English grey sky this morning – flat and white, just depressing. As the day has gone on a nasty chill has developed in the air. Darren just went to stock up the log pile and put two new bombole (gas canisters) on the boiler before it gets dark.

Here in the Puglian countryside no houses are connected to mainline gas. One option would be to have a large cylinder – a bombelone – dug underground containing about 1000 litres of gas to feed our boiler and central system. The advantage of this is that you would only need to refill it every year or so - it is a constant job keeping the 40 litre bottles replenished in the winter. Just for hot water and the cooker in the warmer months (April – November) we consume very few but as soon as the central heating goes on we are going through 2-3 per week.

In one way we like seeing how much gas we consume. I’m sure if we had 1000 litres of gas on tap we would consume it at a faster rate. Not good for the planet and also for our budget - gas is expensive, approx. 20 euros per bombola. We always try to light the fire first in the evening, it heats up the overall temperature of the living room and warms up the soul.

When it is cold here in Puglia you definitely feel it more than in the UK. The houses are just not designed for wintery conditions with their high ceilings and tile floors. It's a bit like when it occasionally gets really hot in the summer in London - we're just not equipped to deal with it.

In town shopkeepers and bars sometimes keep their doorways wide open all year round. Pre-baby we occasionally went to Collepasso cinema and during the winter we took blankets - it was unbearably cold to sit through a feature length film otherwise. I always say that the reason Italians always have very elegant jackets is that they never take them off.

There is no such thing as a perfect climate but I have to admit that it is far more pleasant overall here in Salento than in England. It may stay grey and cold for the next few days. It could rain all night long – the other night the rain lashed against the wall of our little house with such intensity and duration that I felt like I was on a boat.

But we all know that some time over the next week or so we will have some beautiful sunshine, hot enough to sit outside and feel the vitamin D penetrate your skin. The countryside which looks drab and muddy today will sparkle against a bright blue sky and all will be forgiven and forgotten. Until about 4pm, that is, when the sun starts to go down and it’s time to stoke up the fire and wrap up warm for the night.