Upside down seasons

It's kind of fun to have completely inverted seasons.

While others are talking about picnics and sunblock, we're pulling out sweaters and rain jackets. I'm trying to figure out how the timer works on the heater in the living room without resorting to pulling out the user's manual. Somehow I turned the stupid thing off last night, and when I came out at seven, rather than snugly coziness and a rosy gas fire, it was COLD. Dark and empty and COLD.

It's winter -- deep winter here. That means a chill wind blows through the tips of the palm trees in the morning. The leaves of the deciduous trees have all turned yellow and brown, and many of them are actually falling off now, onto the grass that has grown greener with rain. Natives bundle up in black and grey wool, occasionally even a hat and scarf, depending on how well it accessorizes with the rest of the outfit. People whinge a lot about the weather. Here, whinging is the same thing that whining is where I'm from, but you get that extra G for free.

This morning, watching the breeze ripple those palm trees in the early morning sunlight, hearing the tram driver complain about the temperature to a passenger ("it's four degrees outside"), I thought of the neighbor boy who would walk to school with us. The first day in March when the sun came out, and the temperature was above freezing (4 degrees centigrade certainly counts), he would show up in shorts and a T-shirt to walk the three-quarter miles to school. Just because the neighbor was a crazy child doesn't mean I can't continue my whinging.

Now that we are in the deep winter, I can verify that am happy with deep winter here. The winter school holidays are just around the corner. Jonathan was asked if he wants to audition for a holiday performance of the Nutcracker on ice, over the winter week of the 4th of July. All upside down and backwards.

But Nutcracker is fun, and winter is cozy. I got to wear my yellow sweater with the long gray skirt yesterday, for the first time in months. I love that outfit. And it's citrus season, so the oranges are sweet and cheap and tasty. On Saturday, Jonathan and I visited a small local bookstore. We've been reading books and watching movies, cuddled under the blankets in front of the gas heater in the living room. Outside, the wind blows or the fog settles or the raindrops fall, and the lorikeets scream in happiness over the blooming eucalyptus tree outside our window, and the sea gulls fly in from the bay to nibble the grass in the fields in the park, now marked for soccer or Aussie rules football rather than cricket, and all the while the palm trees sway gently in the chill breeze.

Melbourne in June. I love it.