nogsland

I am really not a summer person, not only do I hate the heat, but I hate the snakes, the flies, the total lethargy that sweeps over me whenever I go outside and the brownness that sweeps over the land as we all hold our breath and pray that no bushfires come our way for two to three months.

We have been told that a heatwave is heading our way, it is already predicted to be 46 (nearly 130 for those in the UK) in some parts of New South Wales by Wednesday, for us probably high 30's, but that is quite hot enough. I yearn for long days in the office in my lovely air conditioned room and dread having to go outside for anything. When you do decide to brave it, the sun is so bright it almost blinds you, it is the most incredible bright light as it glints off the pavements, walls and anything else it can lay its rays on. The heat smacks you round the face like a heavy weight, so that you find yourself scurrying like an insect to find evey bit of shade you can as you walk along the street. Welcome to country Australia in the summertime.

At home it should be better, however, the weekender as we know, has flaws even though it is straw bale. The windows are no good and so the insulation is not perfect, good, but not perfect, so after a few days of sustained heat, a warm oppressive air creeps into the rooms. You lay in bed at night, getting up every so often to have a cold shower and then luxuriating for about 10 mins in the droplets of cold water that stay on your skin as you lie on your cotton sheet, until the air sucks it all up again and you are back to where you started. As the night progresses, the sheets get stickier with your body heat, still there is no wind and you sit there wondering if you can be bothered to get up again and do the whole shower thing again.

The down side of getting up is that when you do, that wakes up the dogs, who then decide that they are overheating too and after lapping up some water (I swear dogs are the noisiest lappers of water in the world), they sit their loudly panting for an hour like they are about to expire, or decide they want to come into the bedroom (much hotter than where they are so no logic at all) and scratch at the door for the next hour until I shout at them, which wakes Chris up, if the panting hadn't already woken him. I could go on, but I won't....

The middle of summer, what a joy it is.....