Always winter, never Christmas
The more observant (annoyingly retentive) of you may remember that I wrote a post a few weeks ago scoffing at, even mocking the Australian ‘winter’. I derided both the Aussie version of the bleak season and Aussies themselves for being fragile and delicate when the temperatures dropped below 15°C.
Well, I want to humbly retract that post. As I shivered my way to the bus stop this morning, grass crunching under my feet, I realized that Australia has a proper winter. For the last few weeks it has either been raining - and I mean raining, not drizzling, showering or sprinkling - or bright and cold. There’s no snow or bitter cold, but it’s tangibly winter. Short days, jackets, umbrellas, winter. It’s not that the winter here is terrible. No, I don’t get to the beach as I would like to, but it’s bearable. The problem is that in A Free Man’s world, winter never seems to ends.
If you’ll recall, having survived a fourth long English winter - the season that puts the blight in ‘Blighty’ - we left Britain just as the daffodils were starting to bloom. Just as the promise of spring was on the horizon, we were on a flight out of the country. After a couple of weeks in Sweden (as gloomy as Britain but with snow) and Florida (the closest I’ve seen to a summer in what seems like decades) we headed cross the equator into the Antipodean autumn.
Eight or nine months of winter is one thing, but I’d like to argue that the ’summer’ of 2007 in Britain may as well have been a winter. It rained, rained and then, just for fun, it rained some more. The Thames came unstuck and Oxford was partially under water. Oh, and then it rained some more. If you look at things in that glass half empty kind of way, it’s basically been winter for us since November of 2006.
As I write to you today, from my own personal Narnia, I’m beaten. I lay prostrate to the gods of winter. What will it take - a virgin sacrifice for Boreas? A snow temple to Skadi? Do I have to slay the White Witch? Because, I’m ready to do whatever it takes. Go on and get Papa’s slaying gear, Baby Z.
The good news is that there are only 39 days until the First Day of Spring. Glorious spring.
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Chet Baker’s “Chet Baker Quartet with Russ Freeman” is available from .
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You have always had a flair for the melodramatic!
24 Jul 2008 at 3:33 pm
ahem. maybe you could go to the solarium? it warms your cockles! and it ight put some colour on your moany white ass!
SSGs last blog post..Update again
24 Jul 2008 at 5:14 pm
but weeZ is a QT!
SSGs last blog post..Update again
24 Jul 2008 at 5:15 pm
Um, SSG, haven’t we talked about spelling? I mean, if you’re going to be an editor, don’t you think that’s something you should swot up on?
24 Jul 2008 at 5:21 pm
This is the coldest winter we’ve had here for a few years I reckon. The beautiful thing about our winters is though it may be cold, the sun does still come out here most days. The problem with this however is that it can be very misleading - you may look out the window and think it’s gorgeous…and then freeze ya bollocks off as soon as you step outside! You’ve obviously brought the cold weather with you…if you could bring a bit more rain I think the entire country would thank you. They might even name a ‘bank holiday’ after you!
Agness last blog post..Service. It’s good when you can get it.
24 Jul 2008 at 5:35 pm
I found a little something for you.
Nicholes last blog post..A little something that isn’t working for me
24 Jul 2008 at 10:07 pm
ya i canny type while drinking tea with the other hand. i passed the test though at the company i even spelt liaison right so there
24 Jul 2008 at 10:19 pm
We had a “cool” day yesterday. The temp was supposed to be 88°, but it was so humid we were all wringing wet in minutes. So while you are pining for summer, we are anxiously awaiting “football weather.” I am most definitely made for fall and spring, which really sucks cause Alabama doesn’t get either.
24 Jul 2008 at 11:17 pm
Oh I would lose my tiny mind if I had to deal with winter followed by winter coming on the heels of a crappy summer. It’s why I can not wait to move. Oregon weather is awful. Ideally I’d live in Tahiti!
25 Jul 2008 at 12:45 am
I remember that feeling from Sweden. That winter was just never going to end. I loved the snow and cold. But when it was just damp and blah, that is when it really gets to you. Hang in there man. Soon you will be blogging about the gorgeous, sunny days at the beach. And probably bitching about the heat! LOL
25 Jul 2008 at 2:58 am
Your own personal Narnia. That’s great.
It’s weird to think of you being in the middle of winter while I’m sweating up a storm here. Don’t worry — many beach days are in your near future.
25 Jul 2008 at 3:56 am
Nope, I don’t buy it. Have you never seen Home & Away?
25 Jul 2008 at 4:39 am
Oh, the winter here in Southern California sucks too, all three days of it. Cheers.
Chriss last blog post..Great Balls of Fire
25 Jul 2008 at 5:09 am
Holy Shit! That means there’s 39 days until glorious fall. And then WE get winter, harumph!
25 Jul 2008 at 8:22 am
I am not British (or Swedish, or … ), and I can put up with months of cold drizzly drab-as-hell grayness, but only if the promise of summer materializes. Hold on, just a month more and Santa Claus comes (in Narnia). (And there was nothing to miss this spring in the UK, it was late, short, and bad.)
25 Jul 2008 at 4:49 pm
This too shall pass.
arizaphales last blog post..Give It Me Baby…ah huh huh…
27 Jul 2008 at 12:16 am