12062 What has the winter been like for you?

Hi Nielo - no it must just have been bad in Abruzzo :laughs:

But seriously, here in Lunigiana it has been a wet shocker of a winter. Lot's of snow on the Apuans and Appenines, so good for the skiers (managed 1 day this season, but at least that is 1 more than last). It has rained and rained and rained. One week it rained sideways all week - nightmare. Keeping all the house free of mufa has been an impossible task even with the mighty Termostufa :eeeek: and I suspect I may never have ventured out if it were not for the 3 dogs.

All the locals say this has been the wettest winter in living memory, and I have to hope that it holds on to that record as I will admit to getting totally fed up with it. Spring has started with a mixed bag, but the grass is starting to get long and needs to be cut, every time I get set, it rains again. I've just about done the Olive trees and managed to get some veg coming on and enjoyed cabbages and finocchio but not much else from the orto.

Fingers crossed for eveyone for a great Spring wherever you are -
If winters like this last one start to become the norm, then I'm off to Sicily - RAM, stand by your bed :eeeek:

On the plus side - I'm not stressed out doing 12 hours days for a nasty big corporate anymore :laughs:

wet , wet and wet ......yukk

[quote=Nielo;115177]Here in my little bit of Abruzzo it has rained or snowed almost continuously since October. When I gloop my way to what was my vegetable bed I can hear the water trickling under the surface, it has even washed my spring salad crop down into what was the lawn!

The olive trees, which are usually pruned by the middle of February, are still being cut because the land is too wet. The fave crop is late and what is available in the shops is an astronomical price.

The ski resorts have done well this year but it has been dismal for the rest of us.

Has it been like this all over Italy or is it just the middle that has suffered?

Can’t wait for a good long stretch of sun and warmth![/quote]
this has been the worst winter in the marche that i've experienced in the last 15 years.
it started early and is finishing late..water, wet, not by any means the coldest, they're usually better...the pits.from what i can make out it's been bad everywhere but particularly bad in the center/south this year..(winter is rarely nice in the north anyway) i'm exactly 1 month behind in most of the outside work i have to do so we'll be rushing round like far+s in a bottle shortly to catch up.the only positive thing is that it's only worth planting very late here anyway so there's still plenty of time (don't put in summer veg until almost may here) my neighbour put in 300 tomato plants the other year in early april,15 days later he had to replant another 300 they'd all got blasted by cold..so no rushing please.

We have not been in Bagni since November; however, our lovely neighbour has written to us a couple of times saying that the weather has been terrible. The good news is that we left the keys with her and she has been checking the house to see whether there were any problems. According to her, everything is fine, which gives us peace of mind.
The weather has been pretty bad throughout Europe this winter and it seems as if it is not improving, at least this week.
I caught the flu in spite of being vaccinated and I am still suffering from some complications related to the virus.
Let's hope that the weather will soon improve.

Noooooo this is not supposed to happen....the weather in Glasgow has been fantastic - out in a T Shirt and SUNGLASSES were required today.... it's the 2nd of April! Apart from the snow (which was OK actually - we've had less rain than usual)

Please don't tell me that now I've decided to live in Italy the weather is going to be better in Scotland????

P.S. Hope you are fully recovered soon Gala...

[quote=Jinty;115191]Noooooo this is not supposed to happen....the weather in Glasgow has been fantastic - out in a T Shirt and SUNGLASSES were required today.... it's the 2nd of April! Apart from the snow (which was OK actually - we've had less rain than usual)

Please don't tell me that now I've decided to live in Italy the weather is going to be better in Scotland????

P.S. Hope you are fully recovered soon Gala...[/quote]

Hi Jinty
The weather , like the rugby, is far better here LOL.............Oh Flower of Marche, when will we see.................etc etc :laughs::laughs::laughs:

Oh Flower of Marche, when will we see.................etc etc :laughs::laughs::laughs:

your rain again?

Ricky, apart from being a "sweaty" (sweaty sock = jock)

I'm a mongrel - Irish Mother/ Scottish Father/ Lived in England for 10 years - oh and this will throw the spanner in the works.......

I'm an ARSENAL supporter....c'mon The Gunners...........

[quote=Jinty;115197]Oh Flower of Marche, when will we see.................etc etc :laughs::laughs::laughs:

your rain again?

Ricky, apart from being a "sweaty" (sweaty sock = jock)

I'm a mongrel - Irish Mother/ Scottish Father/ Lived in England for 10 years - oh and this will throw the spanner in the works.......

I'm an ARSENAL supporter....c'mon The Gunners...........[/quote]

Had 2nd wedding in North Berwick, and inherated 2 seats at Murrayfield..........born in Islington, get a weird feeling when I hear the pipes........but have 3 lions on my chest........

[quote=Sebastiano;115183]my neighbour put in 300 tomato plants the other year in early april,15 days later he had to replant another 300 they'd all got blasted by cold..so no rushing please.[/quote]

We nearly lost all ours in June in Le Marche, when we had days and days of endless rain, but we persevered, removed all the black leaves and managed to produce over 300kgs from a 49c packet of Moneymakers from Lidl !

Our orto is still producing curly kale (purple & green), broccoli, celery, leeks, beetroot, Jerusalem artichoke (when will we ever bloody finish them), which produces high winds here on the hill!!
Decided this year not to grow as much as we did last year, as we still have 500Ib of potatoes from last year (now a forest)!!!!
Oh sorry....weather here c@@p, wet, scirocco's, ground very wet & thick mud, but now quite warm. No stove on through the day, & we keep pushing off the heavy fleece in the night..
Our local Italian friends keep saying it's bruta weather & not at all usual for this time of year...but I do remember last year about the same time having 6 weeks of heavy rain & the Mimosa trees breaking under the weight of a snowfall whilst in full flower.
Sprat

Same here in southern Tuscany, with the exception of the occasional day it's been a bad winter and certainly extremely wet. We commented this morning that parts of the Val d'Orcia have had flooded fields since early December, the first time in 14 years we've seen that. Deep, deep channels criss cross fields where water has run off, and there have been landslides of varying degrees in so many places. March was its usual mixed up self with 18 degs one day followed by a daytime "high" of 0 gradi two days later. I've been away for ten days but noticed on return yesterday that nothing has come on in the countryside and there's still very little blossom out or many buds on trees. Lovely now - OH is having aperos in the garden as I type - and we had lunch out in a very sunny spot today. But elderly neighbours warn Holy Week is always cold so perhaps we're not out of it yet.

I think Italy's had a Cornish winter - Daphne Du Maurier once said that Cornwall takes a bath each day and 2 on Sundays!!

But we've had freezing cold dry days and a dry sunny March.The rain last night was the first for 3 weeks!!!

I'm sort of dreading what I'll find in Abruzzo in 2 weeks time.Will I still be able to get to our front door without a machete?

Today 4 April is the equivalent of St Swithuns day in Italy, (says S.Isidoro on my calender???) any way here near Lago Trasimeno it did not rain...Phew!

In our part of Umbria it has been a kind winter with very little snow and enough rain to raise the level of Lago Trasimeno. But those calenders that say when to sow and by what moon, say that it will snow after Easter. Vedremo!

Nor here Noble, though we had the 90% warning that it may, and seems set fine for the rest of the week. Everything is now growing like mad, including the weeds, but not my new roses bushes, perhaps too wet . Outside it is just still light and I have been listening to the owls, bats are not around yet, but the first black bees are , waiting for the wisteria to come out which should be in a week or so (unless we get snow!).Anything is a possibility.
A
A

Angie and Robert get a friend to bring out a box of rose fertiliser by Bayer. Top Rose...it will make a huge difference to the quality of your roses! I have spent a full day out of doors trying to catch up and am about to fall over...or was that the Ibuprofen followed by a prosecco?

It's been brilliant! My off-piste skiing in fresh powder snow has improved tremendously!
Today I went to a new resort on my regional pass, and i must go there more next season as there is some wonderful skiing. In the afternoon the snow was heavy and hard work and great exercise for the legs and lungs. I came home, had a shower and snooze and then went for an apperitivo and was sat outside in a thin cotton top whilst the old guys talked about the spring sowings.

Hopefully they'll soon cut back on the heating for the condominio - it wouldn't be s choice of mine to walk around the house in thin tops in February!

Tomorrow afternoon an away match to Valenza near Alessandria, so I'd better get an earlyish ( :bigergrin:) night...

Yesterday, this little girl with her Celtic complexion got sunburnt as she stupidly went out having only slopped SPF 15 on her face first! We were only out in the sun for a couple of hours but that was enough. It was a glorious day and if that's a precursor for the rest of the summer, it's going to be a good one. (And I'll need to stock up on SPF 50...)

[QUOTE=Noble;115348]Today 4 April is the equivalent of St Swithuns day in Italy, (says S.Isidoro on my calender???) any way here near Lago Trasimeno it did not rain...Phew!...

Yes, Noble, the 4th of April is St Isidore's day, commemorating the date of his death in Seville in 636. A very interesting biography if you are interested:
[url=http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08186a.htm]CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: St. Isidore of Seville[/url]
He has also been nominated to be patron saint of Internet users. I guess the idea is to pray to him whenever our computers crash :laughs:

Please say it's going to be sunny in May. On our last two holidays the rain was torrential the whole time. We still enjoyed it by spending lots of time doing lots of eating and drinking with friends, but if it carries on like that I may soon have to start a new Ryanair thread: "Booking double seats for those who have spent far too much time doing lots of eating and drinking"!

Alma, I'm touching wood like mad here but I think we can safely say it would be impossible to be as wet this May as it was last May, I can't remember a soggier spring. We're just in from picnic lunch at Lago di Chiusi, a little lake that supplies the drinking water for the town of the same name. We've never seen the water level so high so doubt the good people of Chiusi will go thirsty this summer. Noble, is it the same over at nearby Trasimeno?

Yes the height of the water in Lago Trasimeno has risen, not enough but good news. I keep a record of the weather we have had whilst friends have been staying . Over the past 8 years the last week of May, except for 2008, has been cold and wet. UK school half term of course. Last year it was the best week of May here! So who knows?

I do know that the "best weeks" of the year for the past 8 years have been the last 2 weeks of June. Perfection!

[quote=pilchard;115238]
Decided this year not to grow as much as we did last year, as we still have 500Ib of potatoes from last year (now a forest)!!!!

Sprat[/quote]

Get metric baby :bigergrin:/ sprat/pilchard/always confused by how I should respond to a couple/by the way who is sprat and who is pilchard:smile:

Get metric baby :bigergrin:/ sprat/pilchard/always confused by how I should respond to a couple/by the way who is sprat and who is pilchard:smile

Pilchards posts are long, rambling & boring, whereas mine are short, concise, exciting & stimulating. Can't you just smell them hormones? However, what makes you think we are a male & female couple? It is the 21st century after all... Anyway, Pilchards are bigger than Sprats. They say, " set a sprat to catch a mackerel "....I caught a pilchard!
Sprat:bigergrin: