No, it’s not that bad! (we live in the Lot Valley, on the Aveyron / Cantal border about an hour’s drive from the ski resorts and summer hay meadows). I think part of the Limousin’s popularity with Brits is lots of rolling countryside (like the Downs), it’s an easy drive down from the north, it doesn’t get too hot and lots don’t hate the rain.
Because it has a bad climate compared to the rest of France, not bad compared to the UK, pffff; and it is empty hilly and cheap which is why Dutch people like it.
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With respect Vero that statement is not strictly true. I have lived in many different places in the UK and I would say that much of south and the middle of England has a better climate than our part of the Limousin (Plateau Millevaches). It’s much, much more extreme here.
You only have to look at the amazing horticulture in England to see it has a much better climate for general growing than here. So much stuff wouldn’t survive here due to the extremes. Like most places the climate has changed here a lot compared to historical records for this area. Lack of winter snow; much higher summer temperatures; extreme droughts such as 2019.
My post was drawing a conclusion that the springs in our part of France for have been mainly rubbish for at least half a decade. I am on a Facebook Gardening in France forum and many people from Brittany, to the Lot, to Dordogne to Ariege etc have commented on the awful spring weather across much (not all) of France. So bad weather is not exclusive to Limousin. 
Spring 2021 was a shocker across nearly all of France. Huge losses for the wine industry for example due to record breaking cold in April.
This March we have barely had a sunny day and it is now the 16th. I only hope it picks up soon and we can turn our heating off and actually you know get some Vitamin D!!
I am not sure what you want is very realistic. I definitely don’t think the Correze can really be classed as the south of France (maybe Brive at a push?- but not the Millevaches area) Even in the south of France March is often quite cold. Let alone the Correze which the Germans described as little Russia during the second World War.
One estate agent who showed us around a place in the Creuse said it was the norm there to have the heating on 10 months of the year.
Here in Manche/Calvados it is as one would expect in Somerset/ Devon but with better summer weather. Well, it was last summer, my first of 4 seasons here.
I am very pleased with my decision to swap my target area from ‘south of the Loire’ to well north of it. I had enough of being reduced to blob of grease and my brains boiled in my skull, for three months of every year, 1200kms south.
Spring in bosky Normandy is coming on nicely. I will soon have to make the acquaintance of a lawn mower, something I have never owned before.
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Of course it can’t, you are right, it is the massif central, freezing and miles from anything. If ever you go to Brive, as I do sometimes for rugby, wear many layers of thermals and swig gentiane to warm you from the inside (nice shop by church).
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I am from the coast of the Var, but now live on the edge of the Arctic circle in southern Dordogne. I grew up eating Barbary figs and bananas as well as lemons oranges and olives etc from the garden, I don’t think those would grow in the open anywhere in the UK.
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Indeed horses, for course I suppose. Equally there are many, many great perennial plants, bulbs, trees and shrubs that wouldn’t grow in Var as it’s basically a sun baked rock!! 
I guess it’s all perspective. Everyone around here considers Brive a sweatbox in the summer and it’s always the hottest place in Correze, often reaching and exceeeding 40 degrees!
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My family grew up eating stuff which Dad grew in the garden, in whichever part of UK we happened to be, north, south, east and west…
The fruit included apples, pears, gooseberries, raspberries, strawberries, red currants, black currants, blackberries… and vegetables of course in their many forms.
Depending on the climate, the crop might be better or not so good as another part of UK… but they all grew and we kids thoroughly enjoyed 'em.
We’d have loved some of your “exotic” offerings…
I didn’t eat a fresh fig until I was into my late 30’s… I’d only eaten dried (ghastly) but a friend insisted I try this fruit her Dad imported… yummy… marvellous !!!
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Well I actually mean’t the southern half of France, I should have been more specific. Our property on the Plateau Millevaches is actually closer to the Med coast than the English Channel.
I think we are just in a run of cool and unsettled springs, especially 2021 in which April was so cold it wiped out most of our veg plot and it never recovered. It feels worse because last summer was so cool, wet and unsettled. Basically the lst time we had sustained decent weather was February 2021 that’s 13 months ago!
We have friends in Creuse on the border with Auvergne and they definitely recall warm, dry and mainly sunny springs. The climate records show this too. Maybe it’s all climate change and we are heading into a Gulf Stream shut down!! We’ll have permafrost here if that’s the case! 
Oh well… C’est la vie!!
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You’re above latitude 45 (I drove over the marker this afternoon and you could see the difference 
) so closer to the north pole than to the equator…
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There is a marker to latitude 45 near St Seurin - what is the importance of latitude 45?
Is this it? :
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Yes! I love those little signs that tell you things like that and enjoy things like picking a latitude or longitude and going right the way round seeing what is on it. Obviously I am tragic,need to get out more and get a life.
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I agree @vero, I look out for the Méridienne Verte signs and markers when I think there should be one around. I drive past one in Carcassonne regularly.
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Back to the original topic… I’ve noticed, year on year… how the seasons are changing/blurring. We used to have 4 distinct seasons in our area… but no more.
For the farmers, this can mean they have to change/adapt their methods/crops… for others it means one tries to make the best/most of whatever comes.
This winter was certainly warm and the grass has not stopped growing.
It’s been the first year a local farmer has left his animals outside for the whole time.
Previously, he would bring them inside as soon as the chill descended… and the door would be firmly closed.
In the springtime, there would be that magic day when the animals were “let loose”.
The sight of the calves jumping for joy as they discovered the great-outdoors for the first time… that was always a heart-warming moment.
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Haven’t looked at the forecast for the thousand cow area but here’s what forecast for my bit of The Morvan
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Crikey it’s like living back in the UK all those years ago. All this talk about the weather…
Everyone around here is ALWAYS talking about the weather - too hot / too cold / too wet /too dry. Maybe because it’s farming country but the weather really matters. 
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To be honest they do here quite a lot too, but as we have a nursery/plant business weather is very important to our customers ! 
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Most of our local farmers tune in to the Agricultural Weather (whatever that is)… and swear by it… (or swear at it… ) so if we see them suddenly “on the go…” we know that the weather is about to change.