TheBanyanTree: That Side

[Peter Macinnis]

Cecil wrote:
>> At 11:15 PM -0400 4/18/06, maria gibson wrote
>>
>> I sure do love sitting outside in the spring.
>>
>> Maria
> 
> 
> 
>         The air is warm, and the  sky is blue.
>         The leaves are green-yellow because they're new.
>         Your feet go skipping; the birds all sing.
>         The whole world is happy because it is spring.
> 
>                     --composer not known

Not the whole world, alas!  Here in Sydney, an Australian mock-autumn is 
falling.  That is to say, we have gone off daylight saving, we see the 
sun rising later and setting earlier, and in about 25 minutes, the sun 
will come streaming in through my east-facing window, reflected off a 
window on the house behind.  Each season, I have two weeks of the sun 
peeping around their house in the morning, and bouncing off their window 
in the afternoon.

There are a few streets that are now dangerous to drive up in the late 
afternoon, because they slope up to the west.  So the seasonal markers 
are there in the sun angles.

I say mock-autumn, because the temperatures are running up into the high 
20s -- that's into the 80s in Fahrenheit.  I am working with an open 
window and I have bare feet to stay comfortable.  We have had a few 
quick touches of chill, before returning to glorious warmth again, and 
the sea is a balmy 24 Celsius -- call it 75 F -- so once you get into 
the water, the swimming is good, even a month past the equinox.

Very few Australian plants lose their leaves, and in our mild climate, 
there are flowers blooming all through the year.  On a single bush 
track, a couple of days ago, we counted a dozen species in bloom.  Up in 
the mountains to our west, a thousand metres, 3000 feet higher, there 
are many exotic species, and so the autumn colours are there now.  We 
have cousins from the other side of Australia visiting, so we are taking 
them up there on Friday.

In the back yard, our Cootamundra wattle, due to flower in June, is 
already in bud, and larrikin parakeets are squabbling in the trees.  A 
couple of tropical birds which drop in for summer have gone, the rest 
are still here.

The cold days will come, it may snow once or twice in the next four 
months, up in the mountains.  We are watching the Southern Oscillation 
Index, which stands now at 19 -- that number says we should have no 
drought any more, but nobody seems to have told the weather.

I expect winter will fall on the third Wednesday in July, between 3:30 
and 3:45 pm -- we just have to hope we will see rain, before and after.

peter


-- 
   _--|\    Peter Macinnis       petermacinnis at ozemail.com.au
  /     \   Runner-up, Wallangumba submarine chess festival,
  \.--._*   unusually unreliable source on double negatives,
       v    http://members.ozemail.com.au/~macinnis/index.htm