It's morning, and I've just been watching the BBC Breakfast programme about people who are suffering from a lack of heating oil this year.

I feel sorry for these people - I really do. It's scandalous the way the price of heating oil isn't regulated in the same way as mains gas, etc. But watching people being interviewed, complaining about how cold their houses are, I can't help but notice that not one of them is dressed properly. 

If you live in the countryside, you can't twat about in a cotton blouse and a t-shirt indoors, wittering like a townie - you have to tog up. That means Aran or Shetland sweaters, hats, thick wool trousers, Ugg boots.

We are so used to this way of dressing in this neck of the woods that we don't even think about it, but it is, after all, only the way we all dressed when we were kids, before central heating became ubiquitous. 30 years ago, people didn't expect their whole house to be warm in winter - you heated only the space you were IN, and you stayed in that space.

Right now, I'm not yet dressed, and that means: full-length silk nightie, cashmere cowlneck sweater, beanie (this is my actual sleeping attire - if I slept without a hat, the cold would wake me up). Add to that Ugg boots, full-length wrap woolmix cardi worn as a dressing gown, and a calf-length wool kimono.

This might seem like overkill if you live in town, but our living room temperature is 13 degrees right now, after three hours of the central heating being on (it will now go off until tomorrow). However, I'm warm as toast. 12-14 degrees is pretty much as good as it gets here and I don't think of it as cold indoors until it drops to about 10 degrees.

In case you're wondering, the DH hasn't had a cold in years, and I only get bronchitis in summer. On the downside, we do find shops, offices and hospitals appallingly hot, stuffy and airless.

Another thing I notice from the telly is people's apparent reliance on only one form of heating. But you can't live in the countryside and rely on supplies - they can be disrupted for all kinds of reasons. You also have to order well in advance - you can't leave deliveries till the last minute and it looks like many people have been caught out in this way in Britain this year, with the suppliers running around like blue-arsed flies trying to do a month's deliveries in a week.

Here, we have tough winter weather - icy winds and well-below-freezing temperatures for days or weeks at a time - and if you're not prepared, you're buggered. The power also goes out at the first opportunity because cables run above ground in France. We therefore have a plentiful supply of candles and paraffin lamps, lots of bottled water (no electricity means no pump for our well) and four forms of heating: oil-fired central heating (which we use for just a few hours in the morning); electric blow heaters in the bedroom and office; a butane portable heater in the kitchen, and woodburners in the kitchen and living room. We also tried a fifth form - paraffin heating - but found it too smelly, and these days, we also have two types of wood fuel - logs and densified wood - so that we can ensure supply at any time of year.

Country people in England are learning the hard way this year how quickly everything can grind to a halt, as are many in town - it is only when the weather really bites that you become aware of how precariously we all cling to the illusion of civilisation.

It seems like a strange thing when it is still summer to be thinking about winter, but it's part and parcel of life in rural France that you have to think ahead. This year, we began our winter planning in July.

Most of us here, for instance, heat our houses with woodburning stoves, so there is no 'turning the heat up' when you need it and just expecting the mains supply to be there. You have to make sure you have stock in, and wood ordered in summer comes at a lower price than winter wood, for obvious reasons. It's also better delivered in summer so that you can get it under cover and make sure it dries out good and proper before winter arrives. 

This year, we haven't had a summer wood delivery because we're waiting for a friend to come and cut up the remainder of last year's overstock, which was too long to fit in the stove. Our chainsaw is broken, so this is labour we'll have to hire for this year. 

Instead, I ordered densified wood, which at 257 euros a half-tonne and 335 euros a tonne, works out a lot cheaper if you buy it in bulk. That arrived on Monday, just as the heavens opened (in the driest summer since 1914...), and the DH and I had to barrow it into the barn in the pouring-down rain. Just as we finished, so did the rain, of course.

We also ordered the oil for our central heating back in June. Those of you who don't heat with oil will not have noticed the price drop, as it hasn't translated into petrol prices at the pump, but the lower price for heating fuel is a massive bonus this year - around half the price it was two years ago. So now we have a nice full tank, which always makes me feel happy - it was so empty it was nearly running on vapour. 

Meanwhile, on Monday, the 'window guy' came to measure up the windows properly and get his deposit. Three medium-size windows (replacing leaky single-glazing) are setting us back nearly 3,000 euros. Argon-filled, with a stove-enamelled finish, they are the world's whizziest windows, and for the price, they'd better be. But we trust the installer, whom we've used before, and the windows will be started on 20 September, just before the weather gets really cold. 

On Friday it's the turn of the bedroom, which is being insulated with 20cm-thick polystyrene-backed plasterboard. Hopefully it will make a big difference, as below our beams, which are dado-rail height, we are only protected from the outside world by a centimetre-thick layer of plasterboard. 

Things should be better this year, though our cathedral ceiling means the room will never be warm. But I don't ask much, really. Just that I don't have to sleep in a hat all this winter, as I did last year...

Trust me to open my big mouth yesterday. What did I say about the snow?

16cm of the stuff fell in the night - that's six inches in old money. 6.3 to be precise. Not Washington or Baltimore, admittedly, but enough to bring the place to a standstill. We are once again in a white, white world. 

I went out for a walk in it just now, which was very hard going. There is, strangely, not a single animal track in the snow today - perhaps it's so deep they daren't venture out. Consequently I've given the birds a double helping of grub, plus lots of warm water, and put out vegetable peelings for the deer, if they should stray by. 

When the snow fell back in December, I didn't really get out in it much because I couldn't get my wellies on after my foot ops. So it was nice to benefit from it today - bitter NE wind and all. It is incredibly bright and sunny, with an alpine blue sky, so once into my kit I was as warm as toast. In case you're wondering, this is:

Cycling thermals, ski gloves, angora back-warmer and thermal socks from Lidl

Cashmere poloneck

Down jacket

Skiing trousers and microfibre balaclava from a local sports shop

Neoprene-lined wellies by Aigle

Guy Cotton yachtsman's jacket

Pull-on hat with brim. 

OK, I look two feet tall, but who cares? I could throw myself down and make snow angels without even feeling it.

The poor dog had to stop every five minutes to pull snowballs off his ankles, and every so often would disappear into a ditch, only his nose visible, but he's had a great time charging around. 

Once back in, I have again togged up: angora long-johns, silk vest, CC41 thermal t-shirt, cashmere polo, Shetland gilet, cashmere cardigan, merino trousers, thermal socks, Ugg boots, woolly hat and fingerless gloves. I seem to be wearing a small flock of sheep all to myself. 

Oh la, enjoy it while it lasts, I suppose - thank heavens I got in two weeks' shopping on Monday....

Little article here from the Daily Mail on warm boots for winter.

My money's still on Uggs. When it's really cold, nothing beats them. The best, in my opinion, is the Celt boot from the Celtic Sheepskin Company, which has a big thick tread that really bites through the snow. This year, I'm wearing Jumbo Uggs - nice and warm, but they give you no grip in the snow. 

I must now confess to being somewhat fed-up with the weather.

We've been snowed in now for most of the time since December 13, only able to make odd forays to the (curiously empty) supermarkets, then sliding back down our snowy/icy hill (see pic) and lugging in the shopping from the gate because we literally dare not drive into the courtyard.

Friends have become phone and email entities (when we haven't lost web access, that is, like we did all this weekend) and there is not a sound of a car or a tractor to be heard. 

Here in mixed-farming country, there is little need for the farmers to drive their tractors on the snow-covered roads unless they have cattle to feed. The pigs and fowl are safely in their heated sheds, the winter wheat and oats are safely in the ground, and everything else won't be planted until spring. In fact, in this clayey country, the farmers are probably rubbing their hands at how the winter weather is doing their sod-busting for them. 

The main roads around us have been cleared by the councils, but the smaller roads remain untouched and lethally slippery, with more snow and freezing rain on the way. Today, therefore, we ventured out and stocked up for another good two weeks, as we just don't know if and when we'll get out again. The supermarket carpark was an ice rink and we've had one fatality up the lane where an old man slipped and cracked his head on the ice. 

Still, the enforced solitude and the inability to get on with the garden have finally spurred me to do some 'sorting' out and clothing repairs. I sat down last night to darn a cashmere sweater that had ripped in the armscye and found 10 small holes in it, mostly courtesy of the cats, and finally plugged them all up.

Darning was one of those things my grandad taught me to do and it's stood me in good stead over the years - I can still see him now, in his old people's bungalow, patiently darning his socks over a darning mushroom.

Oh well, off to light the woodburner, and as I type down comes the snow again, this time near-horizontal, driven by an easterly wind. The activities of daily living certainly do seem to take up an inordinate amount of time in winter....

»  Click here to see some photos of our local landscape ...