First frost 2025

Sometimes as early as the beginning of June; sometimes as late as mid-July, but here it is, and heavy. Polar front predicted to give us several days of cold weather…oh sorry, “extreme” — from -2 to 3°C, or mid 20s to mid 30s°F. Pretty funny for someone who grew up in Connecticut. Or, God forbid, Canada! 😱

However, what we lack in extreme cold outside we make up for with our home’s insulation, consisting of single brick and stucco. In other words, nothing.

But Uruguay! This apparently goes back a bit (source):

They have fine houses and well-padded pocket-books. Many of them trace their descent from families that came to Uruguay hundreds of years ago. Their possessions are in great estates, rented houses, and in cattle and sheep. They have their palaces in Montevideo, whose floors are marble, and whose ceilings are frescoed and upheld by marble columns from Italy. They have vast one-story buildings on their estates, where in summer time they entertain like lords, supplying every guest with a horse. In the winter, their surroundings are equally pretentious, but very uncomfortable, for the houses of Montevideo are as frigid as the white marble in which they are finished. The people believe artificial heat unhealthy, and in this city, which is as large as Washington, and quite as cold, there is not a furnace or a steam-heating plant. During cold snaps, a hostess often receives dressed in furs, with her hands in a muff and her feet on a hot-water bottle, and gentlemen and ladies come to state dinners in over-coats and fur capes.