I´ve just been told that the UK has endured its coldest winter for 13 years. To be honest, it´s also been a pretty dismal winter here in Southern Spain, certainly the worst that I can recall since I bought my property in Marbella 8 years ago. The local Spanish people cannot believe it – they are always complaining about the cold and damp conditions. Certainly not very Mediettanean!

So I guess we must all be enduring a cold ´snap´ across Europe in general.

Although the UK seems unable to cope with ice and snow, it is certainly able to cope with the cold. In fact it does it very well. Each time I go to the UK during the winter months, I have the luxury of sitting in warm, cosy homes with radiators and carpets. Oh, the joys of central heating!
In Spain, we are not quite so fortunate – most properties in Spain boast an air conditioning system that can blow out luke-warm air that (eventually) provides some comfort, although at the expense of drying out your skin and your eyes for days on end. Of course there are no carpets – just cold, hard marble or ceramic tiles. Those people in the luxury properties in Spain can often turn to their underfloor heating for some comfort, but even this is normally restricted to bathroom floors, and it can take hours to heat up – imagine trying to heat the surface of a slab of marble from beneath!

There are 2 things that have been selling well in Spain this winter, even in the depths of this awful recession – firewood and portable radiators. Both can provide some respite from the chilly conditions that we are encountering.

Roll on the summer!!