High summer

Five pm on a day between Christmas and New Year’s days: 38 degrees centigrade. Sweat drips at the slightest movement. Laundry bakes on the line. Bare feet toast on the paths. Long daytime naps are taken. The sky seems enormously blue and filled with billowing clouds like swirls of heavy cream. It would seem like a romantic metaphor except that you can only think of how you could keep the cream from going rancid.

You try to feel virtuous at your environmental soundness in not having air-conditioning. Does spending an hour grocery shopping in air conditioned comfort then having the car air conditioner on to keep the milk from spoiling count in one’s cosmic environmental footprint? The ceiling fans seem to only circulate warm air. You could dry your hair under the warm draughtiness. Tasks are allocated according to likelihood of heat exhaustion. No soffits today and it might even be too hot to lay flooring. Paint dries as it is applied. Will the council accept weather as a justification for lateness?

Storms blow past intermittently in the valley and increase the moisture and heat: patches of red and dark blue on the weather radar. This is Christmas in Australia.

South Africa beats Australia in cricket on our own turf for the first time in 16 years. Truly nature seems against us.