Ha! beware - south Vienne / north Charente is on my list of possibles for when I finally get to move to France… 
You’ll be very welcome to get in touch and call in for a coffee etc next time you’re scouting around!
South Vienne, very nice
SW 24, the entire winter has been dreadful. I much preferred 12 and 13 years ago when it snowed then went down to -14°C and -17°C but with blazing sunshine. Much better that than day after day where it is DREICH.
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A good Scottish word for Scottish type weather!
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Round here - Lot et Garonne - it’s been MOCHE.
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We’re in the Jura. Previously very cold, with good snow and sparkling blue skies. This year has been far too warm so endless rain not snow, and grey not sparkly. Dreich, dreary, dismal, desolate……
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Would be unfair to describe our Lot Valley winter as kak but it’s a good expressive word. We’ve certainly had a lot of rain, but the Lot hasn’t burst its banks in our village and I did the second half of a mid-Jan rando in a Tshirt. Only had frost one morning all winter and I noticed today that one of our figuiers has sprung back into life, so spring has sprung…
If we can get rid of the maçons who took over the garden last September, I can actually begin getting things ready.
Apropos, would appreciate suggestions on how to partially at least hide a 5m run of old stone wall to a height of 1.5- 2m. We’ve had the rest of the 5/6m high wall re-done, but the remaining bit will cost a couple of thousand € more and isn’t structurally necessary. It’s sheltered, west facing gets plenty of sun, has light loamy soil and has previously successfully hosted all sorts of things from raspberry canes to feral vines.
Thank you very much Brian that’s very kind… I might well take you up on that - local knowledge is always valuable!
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At last I know why we chose the Dordogne, or at least the little bit of it where our house nestles, it is almost always mild though we do get our share of rain (that’s why it is called Perigord Vert and proudly written on the back of every wagon I drove here 
) but very little snow and the worst I can recall is La Grande Tempete of '99, even then we slept through it all and only realised what had happened when I saw on walking around next morning that our giant ok tree had been uprooted. Saved me money actually as it was due to be felled to make way for our house extension. 
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We need rain, been officially two years now since any significant amount and some mountain villages are dry, having water tanker-ed in daily and then still rationed. Its been very warm for weeks now although when the tramontine blows it chills as it comes off the snowy peaks high up but soon heats up again. I have not bothered to buy plants yet, waiting to see what the neighbours put in their gardens first as they are locals so know what survives this heat which can get upto 40°C plus in July. I have not had any heating on apart from a blast of the reverse AC every week just to keep the unit in good condition so have saved a shed load of money in that area. Fires still break out and warning everywhere about throwing butt ends out of cars.
Oh the irony of the French exporting bottled water whilst areas of France have droughts. Stupid world
Yes it’s mad. Shipping bottled water around is the maddest least-eco-friendly thing possible.
The maddest in that respect is a ludicrous product called “Fiji water” - which as the name implies is bottled mineral water from Fiji, about as remote a spot as you could choose to ship anything from.
The hotels in Turks & Caicos used to offer it to guests, despite our islands having an extremely good desalination plant which produced perfectly drinkable bottled water less than 10 miles from their premises.
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With branded bottled water, you KNOW it’s usually not the water that you’re buying (there are some exceptions) but the same kind of thing that Gwyneth Paltrow sells.
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Hopefully not the same flavour as her candles… 
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Nestlé has been reported some time ago as taking water from third world places that don’t have enough, bottling it and exporting to wealthy first world countries. It was called Dasani or something and came from, I think, India.
That is scandalous but what do we expect from one of the largest manufactures of food and dont forget their baby milk formula scandal.
Yes Dasani is a well-known offender - and essentially a complete con - when they launched in the UK they were basically just bottling tap water supplied by Thames Water!
Brand owners Coca-Cola (not Nestlé) claimed the water was “filtered”, but they eventually withdrew Dasani from the UK market after it was found to contain illegal levels of bromate.
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There are much worse things I can think of than that! 
Is that the stuff that makes men go off hanky panky?