The Scent Of Spring
Without Prejudice
The spring weather seems to be arriving earlier this year. I could say it's Global Warming, but I won't. The seasons seemingly out of kilter, the last few years. Long summers that are fiercer and slip into Indian Summer just when you have had enough of bare foot burning days.
Just when your body mind and spirit longs to get into your first pair of sweat pants. I know several people that frown on sweat pants as an outfit, they obviously don't live in Victoria, nor have a joyous, excite able German Sheperd bitch who throws herself with delight at you no matter what you do, she just looooves everything.
I can't get out of my house until the dog has dribbled, licked and pawed me and I have told her she's a good girl, so sweat pants are de rigeur if I just want to race down to Coles and pick up a few things. I've been training her with positive reward behaviour for months now. But she is smart and an idiot all at the same time.
This is a trait of the German Sheperd until she matures a little. It is a bit worrisome when I stop and talk to a neighbour with a three year old male German Sheperd and she says he is still the same at three as he was at one. An idiot.
I thought the breed was known for it's intelligence, great with families behaviours, their disciplined demeanour when with the Police, Army, running around capturing bandits and sniffing out Junkies at Airports. Hmm, she thinks a wire spring is a snake and has to guard it from us. But will let anyone in the gate and hide from them. So timid.
She will hurl herself at the gate and can clear five feet in a single bound, not that she would chase a burglar but she sure would make him feel that she might. We investigate her barking these days since some crummy whacked out junkie broke in to one of my cars and took the radio face ( cactus, died ages ago and they don't make the eight track stock standard stereo that came with the 1989 Corolla.)
I remember that morning, her frantic barking at 5.30 am and yelled at her to
" Shut Up "
But she kept it up.
Zach my grandson saw a strange person in the dark street. One of those " weird people " and when I asked what weird people he replied,
" Jogger People "
Turned out the jogger with the hoodie pinched my mobile phone out of the car as well. The new one I had bought and jumped in the shower with on a brutally hot day, still wearing my cossies, well cossie top and the brand new phone was tucked in it. I really ruined it. Tried drying it, nothing worked, so put it in glove box of the car for months. It condensed behind its glass cover but otherwise made no movement ever again and wouldn't even turn on.
I thought of that junkie getting back to his untidy filthy flat and trying to turn on a defunct phone and car radio face plate, both really really fucked. Ha ha. Still gave me a fright that someone had been through my car however. I felt violated in some daft way. And I had been up to Coles and was on my back and remember thinking,
" That's funny, I thought I had a radio in this car"
Not that it worked.!
Not since the ADHD redhead boy hit the off button on it and it never worked again. Off for life. Dead as a maggot. Took it to car dealers and Autobarns, no good they said, dead, they said, out of date they said. They only came stock standard in that model Toyota and only for six months. Great !
I like to keep things original. Especially with cars.
But it was not to be and that was Summer when the long hot days stretched out ahead of you like chewy Hubba Bubba melting in the road, stretching out in long soft strings of stickiness. Then comes a day, usually late April when the days shorten just a little and you feel the need to clad your legs, hence the sweats. It's so exciting that first day with a hint of cooler weather to come. I vow not to complain about the cold this year and don't.
Autumn is the most sensational season in Melbourne, beautiful, cold mornings and crisp nights and glorious sunny days sandwiched between. The grass is greener after dusty days of baking heat, we are not rushing with hoses to rescue plants and the dog with drenchings of cold water. Next year I am hiding one of those blow up mattresses filled with water under the front porch and rather than just lying on dirt and panting she will be comfortable.
Then Winter arrives. Days are short now and slow to warm. The sun is there but hidden by cloud, then frost arrives and the car windscreen has to be defrosted from the outside. Then fog, chilly winds, rain, even snow in the hills. Hailstones that are as big as golf balls and hammer on my flat tin roof with such deafening ferocity.
Then one night, a few months after The Winter Solstice comes a warmth to the Earth. It is no longer iron bark freezing. The mud turns sandy rather than it's usual quagmire consistency. The dog
sunbakes on the mini trampoline with lolly gagging delight. And their is a scent, a scent I wait for all
year it seems. It's a mix of coconut in Reef Oil, vanilla with a hint of sun kissed flesh, apricots, and white musk by the Body Shop. It's heaven.
It's a promise of better things to come, of warm long nights of romance and long lingering kisses. It's a scent of hope, new beginnings as the Winter retreats and Spring steps forward. And immediately I grieve for the quiet winter spent indoors. The peace and quiet of good books and hot drinks. Old movies and hibernation.
First the dark that must be endured in contrast to the light, the busyness, the fun of long nights of Twilight. On the one hand sad to see Winter go and a dizzying euphoria at the thought of the Spring, the flowers, the lambs, the birds, the swooping magpies, and the short ecstatic Summer to follow, the bronzed healthy looking skin , the swims in the bay, ah bless us all Spring is on it's way.
The spring weather seems to be arriving earlier this year. I could say it's Global Warming, but I won't. The seasons seemingly out of kilter, the last few years. Long summers that are fiercer and slip into Indian Summer just when you have had enough of bare foot burning days.
Just when your body mind and spirit longs to get into your first pair of sweat pants. I know several people that frown on sweat pants as an outfit, they obviously don't live in Victoria, nor have a joyous, excite able German Sheperd bitch who throws herself with delight at you no matter what you do, she just looooves everything.
I can't get out of my house until the dog has dribbled, licked and pawed me and I have told her she's a good girl, so sweat pants are de rigeur if I just want to race down to Coles and pick up a few things. I've been training her with positive reward behaviour for months now. But she is smart and an idiot all at the same time.
This is a trait of the German Sheperd until she matures a little. It is a bit worrisome when I stop and talk to a neighbour with a three year old male German Sheperd and she says he is still the same at three as he was at one. An idiot.
I thought the breed was known for it's intelligence, great with families behaviours, their disciplined demeanour when with the Police, Army, running around capturing bandits and sniffing out Junkies at Airports. Hmm, she thinks a wire spring is a snake and has to guard it from us. But will let anyone in the gate and hide from them. So timid.
She will hurl herself at the gate and can clear five feet in a single bound, not that she would chase a burglar but she sure would make him feel that she might. We investigate her barking these days since some crummy whacked out junkie broke in to one of my cars and took the radio face ( cactus, died ages ago and they don't make the eight track stock standard stereo that came with the 1989 Corolla.)
I remember that morning, her frantic barking at 5.30 am and yelled at her to
" Shut Up "
But she kept it up.
Zach my grandson saw a strange person in the dark street. One of those " weird people " and when I asked what weird people he replied,
" Jogger People "
Turned out the jogger with the hoodie pinched my mobile phone out of the car as well. The new one I had bought and jumped in the shower with on a brutally hot day, still wearing my cossies, well cossie top and the brand new phone was tucked in it. I really ruined it. Tried drying it, nothing worked, so put it in glove box of the car for months. It condensed behind its glass cover but otherwise made no movement ever again and wouldn't even turn on.
I thought of that junkie getting back to his untidy filthy flat and trying to turn on a defunct phone and car radio face plate, both really really fucked. Ha ha. Still gave me a fright that someone had been through my car however. I felt violated in some daft way. And I had been up to Coles and was on my back and remember thinking,
" That's funny, I thought I had a radio in this car"
Not that it worked.!
Not since the ADHD redhead boy hit the off button on it and it never worked again. Off for life. Dead as a maggot. Took it to car dealers and Autobarns, no good they said, dead, they said, out of date they said. They only came stock standard in that model Toyota and only for six months. Great !
I like to keep things original. Especially with cars.
But it was not to be and that was Summer when the long hot days stretched out ahead of you like chewy Hubba Bubba melting in the road, stretching out in long soft strings of stickiness. Then comes a day, usually late April when the days shorten just a little and you feel the need to clad your legs, hence the sweats. It's so exciting that first day with a hint of cooler weather to come. I vow not to complain about the cold this year and don't.
Autumn is the most sensational season in Melbourne, beautiful, cold mornings and crisp nights and glorious sunny days sandwiched between. The grass is greener after dusty days of baking heat, we are not rushing with hoses to rescue plants and the dog with drenchings of cold water. Next year I am hiding one of those blow up mattresses filled with water under the front porch and rather than just lying on dirt and panting she will be comfortable.
Then Winter arrives. Days are short now and slow to warm. The sun is there but hidden by cloud, then frost arrives and the car windscreen has to be defrosted from the outside. Then fog, chilly winds, rain, even snow in the hills. Hailstones that are as big as golf balls and hammer on my flat tin roof with such deafening ferocity.
Then one night, a few months after The Winter Solstice comes a warmth to the Earth. It is no longer iron bark freezing. The mud turns sandy rather than it's usual quagmire consistency. The dog
sunbakes on the mini trampoline with lolly gagging delight. And their is a scent, a scent I wait for all
year it seems. It's a mix of coconut in Reef Oil, vanilla with a hint of sun kissed flesh, apricots, and white musk by the Body Shop. It's heaven.
It's a promise of better things to come, of warm long nights of romance and long lingering kisses. It's a scent of hope, new beginnings as the Winter retreats and Spring steps forward. And immediately I grieve for the quiet winter spent indoors. The peace and quiet of good books and hot drinks. Old movies and hibernation.
First the dark that must be endured in contrast to the light, the busyness, the fun of long nights of Twilight. On the one hand sad to see Winter go and a dizzying euphoria at the thought of the Spring, the flowers, the lambs, the birds, the swooping magpies, and the short ecstatic Summer to follow, the bronzed healthy looking skin , the swims in the bay, ah bless us all Spring is on it's way.
