weather vain

About ten years ago, when email was still new-ish and I was a better correspondent, I used to exchange emails regularly with a friend.  One time she wrote to me saying, 'What is all the always-talking-about-the-weather business?  Who gives a fuck about the weather?', etc?

The answer seemed pretty obvious to me.  She lived in Sydney, I lived in Melbourne: I rest my case.  In Melbourne, the weather is a subject of ongoing concern, like a patient who needs constant monitoring.  Small talk about the weather is invariably, well, not exactly big talk, but sizeable enough.

It's interesting how in some places, the weather seems to take on a whole personality of its own.  Arguably, this is the case anywhere, even in a place like Sydney, where the weather is meant to be like a cheery, unobtrusive and reliable friend, to be castigated if it doesn't behave as expected.

And so it is that I find myself launching into yet another NT weather post...I've got bad news for you people living any of Australia's five teeming sores: it's becoming very hot here, almost overnight. So look out for some flashes of extreme heat coming your way. 

We've had a surprisingly temperate Spring, compared to last year, with few temperatures above 34 C.  Now we're cruising into the late 30s, with minimums of 20 C overnight and a weekend forecast of 41 C.  Stepping into your car at lunchtime is like stepping into a microwave.

Unlike what seems to be the majority of the Australian population, I'm not really a hot weather person. When people start saying how much they like 'the heat' or the 'dry heat' or even how much they like 'exercising in the heat', I think they're insane.  I put this down in part to having 'cheap' Celtic skin and always being aware of the burn factor from an early age and the need to avoid the sun, etc, etc.  (So what am I doing in the heat capital of Australia? -- good question.)

I don't have anything poetic to say about the Big Heat -- I probably did the last two years -- but here are some of the things I find myself doing when it comes:

* battening down the hatches and keeping the blinds drawn during the day then opening them, the windows and putting on the fans to let the hot air out at night

* grudgingly putting on the air conditioner for an hour at night if the above doesn't work

* grudgingly putting on the air conditioner all night if the above doesn't work

* grudgingly putting on the air conditioner day and night if the above doesn't work

* laminating myself in sunblock several times a day before going outside

* wearing a long-sleeved shirt over a singlet or T-shirt outside

* hiding at home / in my office, avoiding going out at midday

* drinking 4 L of water a day

* eating more protein, more carbs so I don't get light-headed, esp when exercising

* pushing hot, sweaty cats to the end of the couch / bed

I'm getting to the point where I'm finding it difficult to come up with any new material for blogging -- hence talking about the weather, yet again.  My NT musings all seem the same, cyclical even (no pun intended).  But how many times can you be surprised by the heat, people who talk to you in the street, red dust, sunsets, Aboriginal people, cycling septuagenarians, redneck, yanks, dykes, old lefties, etc? 

It might just be my mood or maybe it's a sign of the times, but the blogosphere also seems to have become fearfully earnest of late.  I seem to remember it being a more frivolous affair a couple of years ago when I first started out.

So...I don't know whether this means less regular posting for a while or if I'm going to flood the blogosphere next week with posts.  Then again, I could always post more photos...  Anyone got a good meme?

Comments

[Francis Xavier Holden]

Here we don't talk about the weather but we read about it a lot. We have squillions of factual and fictual books on weather, storm, hurricanes, volcanoes, rain, clouds (MsFX paints and photos clouds). We also have outside temp gauges in window and humidity gauges and a Galileo sealed tube temp gauge. It's melbourne we have central heating, spot heating, open fires, doonas, jamas, air-con in some parts, and large fans and small fans.We have shade, trees, umbrellas, pergolas, grapevines, wisteria and climbing roses.

But I'm pretty sure cats aren't hot and sweaty. Cats don't sweat.

[elsewhere]

I've been told they have a different thermostat, which is why they survive so well in the desert. They certainly do much avoiding of heat, airing of bellies and rolling in the dirt. But a fat, fluffy cat certainly feels hot & sweaty -- or perhaps it's really its owner who does!

[Nick C]

I'm not in one of the five teeming sores, rather the pustule-in-chief.

The heat just hit us today. And I really do dislike it (althoug its of course a pale imitation of the heat you experience). There's something inescapable about heat that it doesn't share with cold.

And when it is very hot and the earth is bone dry and dust blows everywhere, you get a vague sense that just a little more heat would make the place uninhabitable and this whole city thing would disappear like a collection of tents..

[Laura]

Whenever I get in a taxi at Mildura airport the driver usually makes some nasty comparison between Melbourne weather and the Mildura weather, which they call a climate. I always let them, they have to console themselves somehow for living in the middle of nowhere.

The cicadas have just started up in Melbourne, just this evening.

[suzo]

I developed my weather fixation when I lived in London. Living in Sydney is a relief from the need to discuss it! Though I still watch the weather forecast obsessively. It was apparently 32C here today but didn't seem that hot to me, I managed to avoid the worst of it by staying indoors after midday.
We don't have any fans, air conditioners etc. We do have underfloor heating which is unusual in Sydney but quite wonderful in deepest winter (which only lasts four weeks). We also have an extremely windproof house, also unusual for a terrace.
I think I've been one of the earnest ones - sorry about that.

[suzo]

Cicadas here tonight for the first time too!

[elsewhere]

Hmmm...everyone likes the weather, it seems. Perhaps could start weather meme...

The worst thing about the summer here perhaps is spending so much time inside in the dark. I guess in other areas, the impulse is to embrace the warm weather but here it's too warm to do that.

[Kay]

I'm with Nick - even here in Canberra (which has an inexplicable reputation for being cold) the heat is not my favourite time.

And yes, the dark - awnings down, curtains drawn (our house faces west) - don't like that either.

[Kate]

Growing up in the country all we ever did was talk about the weather, with the major subset of all weathery conversations being the rain, lack thereof, or conversely, the chance of floods. Sadly 'will the levee bank hold?' hasn't been asked in my home town for many a year.

(And it's not that I like being hot, it's that I hate being cold. And I like going to the beach here in Perth, which is probably the best thing this particular pustule has going for it during Jan and Feb. That and the pub.)

[elsewhere]

FXH, the cats definitely felt sweaty today, if only slightly.

[Francsi Xavier Holden]

I'm sure cats do not sweat. Perspire maybe.

[Pavlov's Cat]

Cats don't sweat, they glow.

[ThirdCat]

Some cats sweat as a side-effect of medication they are taking for the obsessive compulsive cleaning disorder they have developed in their old age, probably because they did not get enough fat in their diet because their well-meaning owners fed them kangaroo meat. That's one scenario.

[susoz]

Here's a long new meme, if you're still looking:
http://www.thiswomanswork.com/2006/11/11/ive-been-needing-a-good-meme/

[elsewhere]

TC, my cats are fat, old & OCD, and their owner is well-meaning but she hasn't fed them any kangaroo meat. They also eat complex carbs in titbit form. Thanks for the tip, tho.

And thanks for the meme, Susoz. I seem to remember people breaking out with the memes this time last year...

[Zoe]

Kay! Canberra's reputation for cold is perfectly explicable! It's just also exceedingly hot too.