At Last...

A very freaky thing is happening in London at the moment.

We are having.....wait for it....whisper it:

A summer


Imagine that.

The Winter of My Discontent

My husband put in a request recently for me to write some more topical entries.

I like it when you write about issues. It makes me think about what my point of view is in relation.

The subtext of course being:

I’m sick of your navel gazing.

So I thought about what recent issues I could pontificate on at length here. Some that have captured my attention include:

• The recent life sentence of Frances Inglis, the mother who killed her son by heroin overdose. An act of mercy or murder?
• Ludwig Minnelli, founder of Dignitas and his vision for a humane way to leave this life
• The Hope for Haiti telethon (the tag line being – Is George Clooney positioning himself as the new Bono?)
• The dolphin killings that happen in Taiji, Japan as depicted in, The Cove

Whilst the above are all topics worthy of discussion, my attention is distracted by an omniscient presence that pervades my every thought and has done for many weeks.

January.

January as a month deserves to have a blog entry dedicated to it. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve written about my rapture for this time of year. January is a season all of its own. It’s the season of Hell.

As I wake in the morning gloom to look out the window onto another grim and cheerless day, I wonder whether this is what it might have been like to live in The Dark Ages. Certainly the pale faces squashed up tight in the airless confines of my rush-hour tube carriage, look as if they have been subjected to hours of mediaeval drudgery and hard bread that hurts your teeth.

Powerless as we are to change Mother Nature, it does beg belief that people choose this most joyless of times to practice abstinence. Detox? Are you kidding? We already have no light. Why no food and drink too?

I know I’m not alone in my January-itis. Apparently you are susceptible to this view if you are Australian*.

Despite the connotations of the term, Downunder, the country I hail from is not dark (or hairy). The quality known as light is in such abundance that sunglasses grow from our heads.

I can hear voices echo, well if you love it so much, why don't you go back? Or is that my own talking?

I’m not happy about the lack of sympathy. I probably have S.A.D. I need medical attention.

January-itis is a real thing. They dedicated an episode to it on 30 Rock. The song, A Whiter Shade of Pale was inspired by it. When Dylan Thomas wrote those oft quoted lines:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light

he wasn’t writing about death. Mark my words, the man was Welsh. He was writing about January.


*Quote: If you write about January you will just sound like a moaning Australian.. Husband …(still)

You Are My Sunshine

It's muggy in London tonight. The sky is grey and low slung. It's 9pm as I write this yet it's still light outside.

I'm not used to London feeling like this. The warmth and humidity reminds me of the tropics. It makes me want to be outside by the ocean. If I was in Perth right now, I would drive myself to the seashore and lay on the sand and breathe.

Over the weekend we had fantastic weather. For the first time this year I lay down in the long grass in Richmond Park



and looked up at an all blue sky. I took off as many clothes as I could in a park without being arrested. I closed my eyes and took in the warmth of the sun. I turned my head to my husband who lay next to me:

Hey, if you close your eyes you can hear the sea. I can hear the waves lapping up against Leighton beach...

courtesy of Ben Cooke

The all seeing, all-knowing BBC weather channel has informed us citizens that we are in for a good summer. We're going to get consecutive days of sun interspersed with a few odd days of rain. Just so we don't forget that we're in England.

I hope so much that we have a good summer. Every year everyone I know hopes. Our collective hope could power Ireland.

I love that about you Brits. Despite the grey and grime and grot - you hang on and never stop hoping.

January is the Cruelest Month

It’s sunny today which means that London has come to life. My street looks like a Technicolor fantasy. Hopes soar, spirits rise. Until tomorrow at least when the rain comes falling down.

I have been here nearly three years now and for at least 18 of those 36 months, I do not see sun. Coming from the southern hemisphere, this is difficult. I seem to be in an inverse relationship with the weather over here. The longer I stay, the harder the winter becomes. Perhaps all his moaning about the weather is typical of an Australian living in London.

Despite the cliché of the whinging Pom, my husband (a Brit) claims that Australians are the whiniest lot that he has ever come across. Or perhaps that is because he has me as an example.

It’s not that I want to be so affected by the weather. I simply am. Last years dismal summer left me in a state of panic when winter approached. I eked out an existence throughout those long, dark months by rationing myself small treats to look forward to. I got through it without having to resort to a “Happy Lamp” or trips away to sunnier climes with other light starved Brits. My plan of attack was simple. End of January - one box of Tim Tams. End of February - two boxes of Tim Tams. End of March - three boxes...and so on. Come the end of winter, I could have been the sole distributor of Tim Tams in London.

That said, I do not know how many more London winters my blood sugar levels can take. Fellow Australians assure me that I will get used to the climate. But perhaps that is half the problem. I don’t want to get used to it. It’s not how I want to spend half the year, dammit it, in a shroud of dark gray.

Winter wonderland, I’ll be damned. More like Hell frozen over.