It's Friday again which means its time to give some thought to your favourite things from this week.
Since Captain James Cook first set foot on Aussie soil in late Autumn he probably had no idea of exactly how hot it got here when he decided that Australia would be a good place to settle pasty white British people who had previously experienced very little sun. I also wonder if once the First Fleet arrived in late January 1788, in the full heat of Summer, if all they wanted to do was turn around and go home to old Blighty. Can you imagine those poor people in wool clothes and long dresses in our blistering heat? I suspect the only thing that stopped them going home was that most of them were convicts and didn't have a choice. Plus it took 8 months to get here by boat and that was the only way home again.
I was born and bred in Australia, so I'm used to our weather. Australian weather is half awesome because even though it gets cold in winter it never gets really cold like Northern Hemisphere winters. We don't have that extreme winter weather you poor suckers to the north get. All our extreme weather all gets stored up for our Summer.
Summer to me means sleeping in the bath or on the bathroom floor as a kid because the majority of people didn't have ducted air conditioning in those days and bedrooms got really hot. Too hot to sleep in. Summer to me means salad and sliced meat for dinner or a BBQ because its simply too hot to turn on a kitchen appliance inside the house. Summer in my part of the world means dry heat , so when you walk outside all the air gets sucked out of your lungs and your skin turns into a real life shrinky dink. Summer to me is the bliss of dashing from an air-conditioned car to an air-conditioned house. Summer to me is hibernating for approximately three months with all the windows, doors and curtains closed while the weather does its annual thing. I think I've been left with some genetic imprint from my British ancestors where my brain screams "It's too hot-make it stop".
We've had days and days over the 100F mark in the last few weeks , and yesterday topped the mercury at 41C. Last week we had a delightful day of 45 C. The government doesn't want us to know how hot it really gets and Fahrenheit sounds twice as hot so we use Celsius measurements here as if that somehow changes the temperature to something manageable and less like to bake your brain in your skull.
So my favourite thing today is the fabulous temperature drop we've had overnight which means today is only going to be 27C/80F with a 10% chance of showers. I woke to gentle breezes and light sun and the thought that I can actually be outside without risking being burned into a something crisp and crunchy within 3 minutes. It's not going to last so I'm going to enjoy it while I can.
What's your favourite thing this week?
28 comments:
Well said. Being a coffee addict before we lashed out and got some air con I would make my coffee and go and sit in the pool to drink it. Lol.
When the mercury drops like that you feel like a new person don't you.
Not sure what the temperature will be here today but it has been really hot and humid. Have enjoyed reading your post,had a good chuckle when I read it. Hugs....
Hear , hear! Our aircon broke downbefore Christmas when the hot weather first hit and still isn't fixed !!! I've spent a lot of days sitting in shopping centres with a book and a cup of coffee hiding.
You enjoy, and while you are at it cross your fingers we get a snow day tomorrow.
Fabulous description lol Can I send you some snow to cool off in?
At least y'all's is a dry heat...try 100F+ temps and high humidity! BTW, how's that fabulously expensive cat of your's doing these days?
You enjoy the cool snap,you've earnt it!
I'm with you on the weather change - in more ways than one seeing we live in the same town! Somehow the hot weather is easier to live with when you can see there is a change forecast in a few days - beats that heatwave we had in 2008 when we had scorchers day after day for 15 days in March of all months - I'm moving to Tassie if we get that again! (For overseas people Tassie is as close to the Antarctic you can get and still be in Australia!)
It was B******** hot yesterday. As a kid we would sleep on the front lawn on hot nights nobody does that any more.
As cold as it's been here, I'm not really in any hurry to return to our 100F plus summer we had. Stay cool and enjoy your "cold" snap!
We have been enjoying for the past two days the reversal of an extended cold weather pattern that has SoCalifornians/Angelenos crying into their Aussie Uggs that it is just too darn cold to go on! (50 F, below freezing at night)
Luckily burning to a crisp is not something we do in my part of CA and many homes and businesses do not have air conditioning. Hope the respite continues for both of us!
I'm so hot!! It reached 46.5 at 2pm today! My office at work is a fibro shack with no air con. I'm going to go and lie on the bathroom tiles... Great Friday favourite!
Ha ha, we have been having that conversation too, about how soft we have become when it comes to the weather! Yes back in the day when we didnt have air con in the house or car. Not to mention mobile phones to warn you a bush fire was coming..you had to step outside to check for smoke! Mind you I dont recollect sleeping in the bath, but I do recall driving the 5 hours to Adelaide with wet towels over the back car windows and stopping for a swim at a local pool enroute. Thank heavens we never had to wear a girdle and travel by horse in cart during the summer heat, or go out to the well for some water!!
When I was a kid we use to sleep in the lounge room under the air conditioner, our old house was just a hot box once the heat came in. I remember having mattresses pretty much permanently in the lounge in summer to cope with the heat. At least this year the heat has been dry and not humid and the evaporative can keep up with it though that 44 day nothing helped.
It was even hot here in Melbourne! (Not 41 though, just 39) My cousins family once visited us in Adelaide. They are from Brisbane (a REALLY hot place apparently) and were thrilled when the forecast was for 36. They promptly planned a trip to the beach, despite my protests that 36 was faaaaar too hot a day for the beach. They dismissed my protests by saying that they were from Queensland and used to really hot humid weather. (Dry heat just couldn't compare) So off they went to the beach, and not long later they came back home. Apparently the hot dry heat was like having a hair dryer going in your face, and it sapped all their energy! Good old Adelaide! Adelaide then proceeded to put on a heatwave and we stayed in the cool house with curtains drawn for a week. Yep. That's how you do the heat in Adelaide. It's called survival!
So glad you had the cool change! (Mostly because it meant a cool change for us at about 8am)
I'm over the heat too. Last summer was mild, and damp, and much cooler.....so obviously this year is Mother Nature's payback.
That sounds surprisingly delightful as we are below zero Farenheit regularly over the next few days...and it's currently snowing. Air conditioning there and over-worked furnaces here :)
temps at freezing today and then the downhill slide begins ... all of next week to be below zero (ya that's flipping cold) allllll week long .... hopefully the water mains/etc don't freeze and blow!
I can't decide which is worse, your feels like you have just opened the oven door and hit you in the face heat or our humid, sweat dripping down your spine and into your undies whilst sapping every ounce of energy heat. Ask me how I know, I had to deal with that today. Roll on autumn. At least it doesn't often get over 40 here and we very rarely get really hot nights.
I've linked up for the first time today!
45C? Holy hellfire, that's hot! (And the only reason I know is that I had to run it through a Fahrenheit converter.) It was 115 the day we visited the Hoover Dam in Arizona. I thought I was gonna die frying. Since I still have the converter page up, I will tell you that next week it is supposed to get down to -22C here.
I am glad you have some cooler weather now. 80 is about perfect.
Sounds like perfect weather. and a cool breeze too! Hope you enjoyed your day! Our cold spell here is supposed to have broken. I think it was in the 60s today. Every now and then it gets into the 100s here, but not regularly like you've had it. enjoy the break
Well...beings you are such a Hot Mama any way, this heat just has to be unbearable at times! :) Glad to hear you're getting a break in the weather. Enjoy it while it lasts!! xoxo
So glad you were able to enjoy the weather! I think the best feeling is fresh air in a house! I'm assuming that while your air is dry, the air near Marg is humid?? Ours is definitely humid in the summer.
Our sun finally appeared after a week, and our days are finally getting longer!
Hope your weekend is a good one:)
Ah, summer. I miss summer. We have extremes here, but I'm pretty sure we've never gotten to 45* C. I think it gets up to about 110* F at the hottest. Right now, I'm freezing my knickers off. I'd be happy to see 32* F. I'm so glad you're enjoying the weather, though.
xo -E
I completely agree! My English/Scottish heritage still comes out in my fair freckly skin and lack of love for days over about 32! Living on the Peninsula is so much nicer than the Riverland where we spent ten summers frying with fortnights over 42! We've been staying down at Port Rickaby for a few days and spent Thursday afternoon the best way I know - submerged up to my neck in sea water for two hours!
I feel for you. I hibernate in the summer too! Once it reaches 85 I'm done.
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