When we moved here I was told it had never snowed and there had never been a frost....Well, for the first time in seventy years, there was a very slight frost this February.
Our house is very spacious, marble everywhere which is great for eight or nine months of the year. But from December to early March it can sometimes be warmer outside by the pool than in.
What we do is very simple: for most of the day, until around seven or eight o'clock, we are active: shopping, dog walking, cleaning, cooking, gardening. Then we heat one room, our bedroom, which is spacious and equipped with tv, comfortable chairs etc. We have a folding table and chairs which we set up for dinner so we eat in a civilised way and afterwards we go to bed around nine-thirty /ten and watch tv or read or chat.
We sometimes watch tv etc. in the salon but then we put on a sweater or wrap ourselves in a rug - just as we did back in Dorset when I was a youngster.
Having lived in Prague where it was not unusual to experience temperatures of minus 20 or below with wind chill factor added and where deep snow often lay on the ground from November to March our village seems like Saudi Arabia.