locale

perfect winter's day here in x.
boynton read the on-line headline: Europe swelters - after we melburnians had endured a very chilly August night.
"There's snow!", she had said to a friend as they ventured out to polar Coles, a speech bubble of condensation.
"Where?"
"Somewhere" she replied confidently " there's bound to be snow somewhere."
Earlier she had caught the perfect crisp half hour on sunset on foot, walking one-on-one with the problem dog. It was along a road she hadn't ever walked, and she was thinking of the book Outside Lies Magic, (recommended by Pica in a comment at Fragments-from Floyd.)

It is true, walking pace allows closer vision of the familiar everyday landscape that gets condensed by car travel, where houses are rolling data along the road. On foot each fence that usually flashes by is distinctive. But the zoom-in also allows a zooming out. Boynton saw the kilometre-long strip of post-war houses collectively forming a sort of remnant suburb. A sub-suburb, a substation of lost suburbia. In the early 70's the Freeway sliced through the topography - and it is probably their close proximity that rendered them undesirable enough to survive the various booms and blitzes of dual occupancy and development. Their double-glazed, first-floor terraces overlook the freeway and were themselves overlooked. So it is a little pocket of cream brick featurism and bold fifties futurism and places that look like 60's beach-houses - with towels draped over the railings - fronting the sea of traffic. And Castlemaine slate and 60's style stone-work, and rockeries along concealed driveways into carports built for teenagers. And at one high point boynton saw the old pockets join up as the seam of freeway dipped below the sightlines - and the forties time-warped cypruses and white wooden seat of a chopped park seamlessly flowed into the golf courses with their own museum landscapes.
The air was so perfectly crisp after the showers had eased that boynton was almost struck by a perennial, a purple daisy in the rockery that is never picked out from behind a windscreen at 50 kph. The groundcover was so generous, boynton was tempted to take one home - according to this its essence is Light Heartedness - joy and laughter. Or alternatively according to this - Allows one to accept compliments about physical appearance. Of course the two are complementary - such compliments can only be accepted with laughter. So boynton had better pinch one next time she walks by.

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Comments: locale

Far Too Hot.

Today England had its hottest day ever.

I'm not impressed.

Wish it were Autumn.
Posted by joh at August 11, 2003 02:14 AM

I just heard about that - near 40? That just seems too strange.
We scored 44.something last January but IMHO once it hits 40, any extra degrees become theoretical. You just stay inside and wait for Autumn.
Btw - country Victoria recorded temperatures of -5
the other night. That's cold.
Posted by boynton at August 11, 2003 11:40 AM

I dream of -5.

I fondly remember one summer in Norway where it generally reached -5 at night...

Preferred that to this 38C weather.

It would not be so bad if the British believed in Air Conditioning. (Unfortunately, it is still a novelty, and is not found in our homes, public transport or cars, and is only found in *very* modern offices.)

I'm a spring / autumn person myself. 10-14C and I can wander around (bare-armed) exclaiming about how lovely and warm it is...

Hope you get snow. Snow is great!
Posted by joh at August 11, 2003 11:00 PM

I'm a spring/autumn person too, joh, but that =
18 - 27.8 ! 10 - 14 is Winter in Melbourne! (the other states sneer about it) and there is actually a lot of snow up at the resorts, but we haven't had our hour of snow in the metro area yet.
I sympathise though - I think it's relative. I was in England once when it was 28,and it seemed stifling! I hate the heat - and am quite enjoying this cold snap.
Posted by boynton at August 11, 2003 11:32 PM