We have had a week of relative warmth, redolent of spring, and we’ve even had sunshine which has been superb. I can hear the groans from the Northern Hemisphere as I write, but truly, it’s been an awful winter – too wet, too cold and too long! And the weather boffins are telling us that thanks to La Ninã and the Indian Ocean Dipole, it will be wet on the east coast of Australia until at least December.
I swear I’m done with it.
Anyway, my six:
Back in the little Matchbox garden this week for SoS. My main garden is having a rotten winter with chill rain and wind and it’s reassuring to see it survive; spring will be a lovely reprieve for it. But in the meantime, the tiny city patch has its own microclimate. When the streets, hedges and gardens beyond the garden fence have been white with frost, this little space is showing that it’s moving forward quietly and with no fuss.
Hurrah, I made it to SoS with pics of our main garden on the coast as opposed to the tiny little Matchbox in the city!
My mother always called the coast her healing place – the place she went when she was tired, emotional, recuperating, grieving or just plain cranky. The name stuck and for all my life thus far it has been that and more.
Like now…
Another one is about to bite the dust.
There’s music thumping outside and people yelling. That’s the difficulty with having New Year in summer – everyone celebrates outside and to hell with the neighbours.
We left the coast because the population has bred like the plague (one wonders if that’s literally!!), had hoped the ‘burbs in the city would be empty like they have been every other year. But then this is a Covid year and everyone seems to be eschewing the super-spreader locations and ‘playing’ in back yards.
Today was one of those days that reminded me of what the coast is – a summer’s day which releases special memories that go back 70 years.
The morning began with heat that seared the face and bare feet and the drawn out click and hum of crickets in the underbrush. I walked my dog along the beach and he dragged, not really interested in smells, just swims – his seriously wiry coat not what a dog would want to wear when the temperature was up to 32 degrees by 10.30. But the sea was as blue as the sky – they joined at some nebulous floating horizon. It’s the same whenever it’s hot – everything shimmers.
It’s madness in the cities on this little island. Madness, I tell you. People driving like crazed loons, minds anywhere but on the road, crowds in the supermarkets and stores and so on.
We went to the city for two days but then fled the angst as if it were a noxious fog.
It’s so long since I contributed to SoS and to be honest, after yesterday’s 40 Days and Nights rain, I didn’t think it’d be an option today. However, the sun’s shining, but because the ground is knee-deep in moisture, I’m mixing it up a bit with our tiny town patch and the bigger home garden, all pics bar one taken before the deluge.
