Chasing the weather

By April 25th last year, the kids were sleeping in winter pyjamas and we wore jackets to the ANZAC service. I remember the wind blowing and how cold my hands were as the flag flapped above us. This year, it is still warm and muggy. ANZAC Day may well dawn bright and cold, but we have a way to go to get there. Today is 27C with overnight humidity in the 90 percent range. Our usual April dryness was in March and it has been raining for the last few days. Last night driving home from Rosewood in the dark, the rain was slashing towards us in the headlights and wreaths of mist were twining off the Tallegalla Road. Halfway down the Rosewood-Marburg Road, the road was dry. The chasing rain reached us just after we all got into the house and shut the windows.

All of our water tanks are full to overflowing. When it rains, you can hear the water flowing over the side of the tanks. We’re learning the ins and outs of the new part of the house – which windows let in water, where there are walls that need a bit of extra work, which direction wind rattles which windows. It’s like a new language. And there are parts of the old house that creak differently now that it has been twinned. I love the language of old wooden houses, but I also understand why some people don’t.

Mr Blithe pointed out that it’s been two years since I started the blog. This is exciting in one way and a bit frightening in another because I still am working on the book. I’m still “putting things in” which is one reason I spend so much time thinking about weather. How was it when the Jaeckels left Hamburg? When would the temperature have turned warmer on the trip? What was it like in Batavia? What was it like when they got to Brisbane? They left Hamburg right around this time of year and arrived in Brisbane four months later. In a normal year the temperatures would be about the same or a little warmer in a Hamburg spring as a Brisbane winter. Given the way the weather is fluctuating at the moment though, I have plenty of leeway to make the temperatures whatever I want. Or I could go for historical accuracy and do a bit of research.