We are prepared should summer arrive in Europe some time soon

The reason it had not been completed is that it is necessary for the temperature to top 20 degrees in order for the liner to stretch during installation, which it will only do on a warm day. We have not had too many warm days during the Spring and Summer so far, in common with the rest of Europe, and as for the air-conditioning, it has not been on since it was installed and we were shown how to use it and also the reversible heating facility.

Our daughter, who lives near Barcelona, says the weather has been “funny” – (the worst for 200 years they say) and another daughter, in Dubai, told me it has been so strange that while normally it is too hot to stay out, the temperatures are relatively mild. So the UK is not alone in suffering bad or unseasonal weather.

I was reassured the other day when Ross Jenkins, the former Watford striker, emailed me with his observations on Watford’ Play-Off final defeat. He went on to reveal that after the match he went to look at the beach in Javea on the Costa Blanca, where hailstones the size of golf balls, covered the sands and pebbles.

So we are all suffering.

After my four-month battle with bamboo and its root system, I was looking forward to completing our garden revamp. We had a lovely fortnight in April, which was welcome in many ways, but somewhat too hot for real landscaping. I was getting out there at 8.0 in the mornings to try and achieve as much as possible before the sun really exacted its toll.

I put in a pond liner during that spell, having wheel-barrowed seven cubic of meters of earth from the site. I prepared the liner on a slightly damp afternoon but the sun came out the next day and the liner was far more malleable, underlining why I have had to wait for warm weather to install our swimming -pool liner. Unfortunately my builder friend, who erected the pool with my help last October, has been back in England when the sun has been out down here.

Yet after returning from a fortnight in the UK in May, we ran into two weeks of rain, during which I managed to sneak out for the occasional half day. This past 10 days has been more like the real thing, with temperatures reaching 28, so I am managing to move slowly towards completion of the garden project.

However, I know it should have been completed a couple of months back, but those cursed bamboo roots ran well over a meter deep. That area is now covered with a black polythene cover, a meter down, and then another on the surface, which is now in turn covered with gravel.

I take a little journey to the area every day, with a bottle of Roundup on the hip like a sheriff on patrol, just checking to see if there are any canes of bamboo bidding to break through.

Having sold The Folly to our Limousin friends Dave-up-Road and Donna-Long-Legs, we just have our old house to sell, which in this financial climate is not easy. Hundreds of Brits, who came out here when the exchange rate was anything from 135 to155 euros to the pound, are heading back to Blighty, or attempting to, simply because their money is not stretching as far as it used to.

We have no plans along those lines although ending the expenditure on turning this house and garden into our ideal, is a welcome relief on the coffers.

When we contemplated air-conditioning, it is rather a large house to keep cool but we were assured by our friend Dean, that a unit on each floor would reduce the temperature significantly. We waited for an estimate, which proved to be something of a+ n education.

Dean had air-conditioning installed some six years ago, and uses the reversible heating facility during the winter. Being satisfied with the brand of his system, he shopped around for prices.

“I have had an estimate for 7,400 euros for my system but, with all pipes and fittings, plus delivery, as extras. I have secured another price of 5,240 euros for the same system, again with the fittings and delivery as extra.

“Or you could opt for the third estimate of £3,100 for exactly the same system with all the extras including delivery,” he informed us.

I asked him what was the catch?

There wasn’t one, it transpires. The system is produced by a firm in the UK that sends out air-conditioning systems all over Europe. Dean asked them if they realised French installers were marking them up by over 100 per cent in some cases and then charging installation prices?

“We have all the business we can handle. So what they do with them is their affair,” came the reply.

The system was duly delivered from the UK and for less than 1,000 euros, Dean installed it on three floors.

The only problem is, it has not been hot enough to use it as yet. And when the pool was completed earlier this week, the next day the temperatures dropped and so did the rain.

I think there is a law that covers such eventualities.

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