Winter Is Coming
Without Prejudice
It's only late January but we are having a break from the unrelenting heat of Summer. We still have a whole month of Summer left and the last two mornings have been 13 degrees. Stoically Melbournians refuse to put their heaters on. It's unheard of to turn on a heater in January in Melbourne. It's just not done. Melbourne is the Grand Old Dame of Australian Capital Cities. The others are newer, brasher, more casual. Like a bunch of rowdy teenagers, dressed in bare feet and gaudy attire.
Melbourne is culture, sport, fashion. Black, navy and brown are our Winter colours, mainly as they are warmer in the cold. Although brown as a colour suits no one and I have never owned anything brown in my entire Adult life. It's like Mustard, fashion death to the wearer.
These colder mornings have contained in them, the portent of Winter. And a sniff of the most beautiful Season of all in Melbourne, Autumn. We will still get a Heatwave in February. Days of insane heat where floorboards spread and crack like thunder when the sweet rain arrives and contracts them. I love the Autumn when the air seems rendolent with ancient peat smoke from some swampy bog back in our Ancestry.
The parks are carpets of dry leaves and the trees are on fire in gowns of Gold, Amber and feiry Reds. I think of bonfires and run through the leaves causing them to swirl up, their dry rustling making them almost edible with their dry fudge colour.
As I hang out the washing I take in lungfuls of the air and can smell Winter's approach. I can feel it too in my body, a tugging at the base of my spine, a half forgotten memory of grey days, quickly there and gone in a second.
I gather my cardigan around me, hugging my arms together in defence. I grab the 50 year old cane washing basket and trolley and park them near the brick wall. The Hills HoIst I wind up to its highest and feel a satisfaction as the clothes and towels flap in the fresh air. Later I will bury my head in the fresh smell of laundry dried in the sun and wind.
I uncover the tomatoes, draped as they are in green shade cloth. They need full sun and I rotate the terracotta pots till my juicy little crop faces this cooler sun head on. If they are not shaded on hot days they develop sunburn. I saved them from a fate worse than death ( neglect ) from the lady who died around the corner.
They were a sad bunch of pots then. Black plastic small pots with half dead plants, choking with weeds. She loved her garden that lady. Her ex said I could pick the plump apricots and take the tomato plants. I like to think of her as smiling down at her saved plants, now healthy and green leaved. I remember the little smiling, 4 year old, Cruz, my grandson coming to my unit this morning and we used the old meat mincer to pulp the tomatoes.
Pasta sauce for tea, then. I smile at his remembered antics. The four Weetbix, he ate like a rabid dog, and refused to clear his bowl. Dressed as he was in Bart undies and Thomas The Tank, tank top. All colours he lit up the street as we walked to the Doctors. And the Waiting Room, though he hated the waiting. I want one more year with him. I could take a juicy contract in Purchasing but I would rather be with him. Teaching him. He will be gone off to school next year and I will lose him.
I will no longer be his whole world. Mum busy with new baby girl wants a year with just her and so I step up. He will have Kindergarten this year. I hope it's not the two and a half hour sessions. If it's a whole day though I will miss him. He, with his RED (Sugarfree Red Cordial ) and his " I have a surprise for you " , his quick intellect and his kisses, hugs. Never forgetting. One day he will be a great big man. I want the boy for one more year. And if God is good, which he is, I will. P
It's only late January but we are having a break from the unrelenting heat of Summer. We still have a whole month of Summer left and the last two mornings have been 13 degrees. Stoically Melbournians refuse to put their heaters on. It's unheard of to turn on a heater in January in Melbourne. It's just not done. Melbourne is the Grand Old Dame of Australian Capital Cities. The others are newer, brasher, more casual. Like a bunch of rowdy teenagers, dressed in bare feet and gaudy attire.
Melbourne is culture, sport, fashion. Black, navy and brown are our Winter colours, mainly as they are warmer in the cold. Although brown as a colour suits no one and I have never owned anything brown in my entire Adult life. It's like Mustard, fashion death to the wearer.
These colder mornings have contained in them, the portent of Winter. And a sniff of the most beautiful Season of all in Melbourne, Autumn. We will still get a Heatwave in February. Days of insane heat where floorboards spread and crack like thunder when the sweet rain arrives and contracts them. I love the Autumn when the air seems rendolent with ancient peat smoke from some swampy bog back in our Ancestry.
The parks are carpets of dry leaves and the trees are on fire in gowns of Gold, Amber and feiry Reds. I think of bonfires and run through the leaves causing them to swirl up, their dry rustling making them almost edible with their dry fudge colour.
As I hang out the washing I take in lungfuls of the air and can smell Winter's approach. I can feel it too in my body, a tugging at the base of my spine, a half forgotten memory of grey days, quickly there and gone in a second.
I gather my cardigan around me, hugging my arms together in defence. I grab the 50 year old cane washing basket and trolley and park them near the brick wall. The Hills HoIst I wind up to its highest and feel a satisfaction as the clothes and towels flap in the fresh air. Later I will bury my head in the fresh smell of laundry dried in the sun and wind.
I uncover the tomatoes, draped as they are in green shade cloth. They need full sun and I rotate the terracotta pots till my juicy little crop faces this cooler sun head on. If they are not shaded on hot days they develop sunburn. I saved them from a fate worse than death ( neglect ) from the lady who died around the corner.
They were a sad bunch of pots then. Black plastic small pots with half dead plants, choking with weeds. She loved her garden that lady. Her ex said I could pick the plump apricots and take the tomato plants. I like to think of her as smiling down at her saved plants, now healthy and green leaved. I remember the little smiling, 4 year old, Cruz, my grandson coming to my unit this morning and we used the old meat mincer to pulp the tomatoes.
Pasta sauce for tea, then. I smile at his remembered antics. The four Weetbix, he ate like a rabid dog, and refused to clear his bowl. Dressed as he was in Bart undies and Thomas The Tank, tank top. All colours he lit up the street as we walked to the Doctors. And the Waiting Room, though he hated the waiting. I want one more year with him. I could take a juicy contract in Purchasing but I would rather be with him. Teaching him. He will be gone off to school next year and I will lose him.
I will no longer be his whole world. Mum busy with new baby girl wants a year with just her and so I step up. He will have Kindergarten this year. I hope it's not the two and a half hour sessions. If it's a whole day though I will miss him. He, with his RED (Sugarfree Red Cordial ) and his " I have a surprise for you " , his quick intellect and his kisses, hugs. Never forgetting. One day he will be a great big man. I want the boy for one more year. And if God is good, which he is, I will. P
