Summertime!

There is a heat wave going on in Australia. You probably will have read about the bush fires burning out of control in NSW.

We seem to be far away from that here. We've only had one hot day in the last week. The temperature topped out on Friday at about 43 degrees C (109 F). But then we had one of our cool changes. The daily high since then has been about 22 C (72 F).

I have been off work since Friday, which is a very nice place to be in the summertime.

In the hot hot heat Friday afternoon, Tim and I took Jonathan to his ice skating lesson, and sat and shivered and shivered and shivered for two hours in the purple cold.

I tell you, 43 degrees C (109 F) actually feels really really good coming out of the ice house. While waiting for Jonathan to pack up his bag, I stepped out onto the hot asphalt and took my bare feet out of my sandals to warm them up. Ah!

Then we picked a nearby restaurant for dinner, and chose to eat outside.

Jonathan, who had been exercising, was way too hot. Tim and I, after spending two hours being slowly refrigerated, found it lovely to thaw.

But as I said, that was the only one hot day in this whole massive heat wave sweeping everyone else in the country. Otherwise the weather has been lovely. Perfect for a walk in the botanic gardens.

And up through the arts precinct to the city centre. 

There are a lot of people out on a sunny summer day in Melbourne just before Christmas. Lots and lots and lots of people. Standing-room-only on the trams. People up to your elbows on the sidewalks. Jonathan and I were going to do a little clothes shopping yesterday, but the lines for dressing rooms were too long in the city centre stores. So the only clothes we bought were socks. Merry Christmas!

And then finally, I decided that this summer, I am going to get into better shape. While traveling in November, I found that I really struggled to lift my suitcase up to the shelf above my head on the train. Like shaky-arms, sore muscles, afraid I was going to hurt my back struggled. That's not good. So over the weekend, I downloaded a full body workout app and started exercising! Abs, arms, legs! I am going to be strong! Strong! Strong!

Friends, I am so sore I can barely roll myself off the couch. And that is with the app settings on easiest possible. For example, I had to pretend I could do three whole pushups to even get started, because that's the lowest number it allowed when it asked. And apparently when the app asks how many pushups you can do, it means "in a row", and not "ever in your life". What?! Can't you see I can barely roll off the couch here?

Maybe I should just ask someone else to lift my suitcases for me.