Mad Dogs and Englishmen

I used to love Western Australia's summers. I would wait for the changeable spring days to announce the end of the wet and wild winter. The last cold fronts would scurry past, leaving in their wake the glorious warmer days and comfortable nights. Then summer would arrive with a mixture of pleasant days, interspersed with the heat, but not the grinding day after day of intense, unrelenting temperatures.

Our State Premier once famously quipped that air conditioning wasn't a necessity in the South  West. My memories of the initial nineteen years in Perth were without air conditioning. We knew to shut up the house on very hot days, knowing that we could open up in the cool of the evenings. I didn't have air conditioning of any sort until 2003. The first summer we had the air conditioning I barely turned it on.

All has changed. Climate change is a reality. We have just had a week of temperatures with most days above thirty-five degrees. Today was particularly tortuous. Five hot and sticky days in the East End Gallery had drained every bit of well being out of me. By mid-afternoon, the Gallery was actually hotter than outside. Michael's workshop, usually a sanctuary of coolness, wasn't much better. Some guests into the Gallery in the late morning squeezed my last enthusiastic breath. By three-thirty, I was spent.

The last two years have accentuated the change from the previous weather patterns. I used to say that Beverley had four distinct seasons. Spring and autumn have become brief interludes between the heat and the cold. We have noticed a definite struggle for some of our plants we are valiantly trying to keep alive in pots. The Chinese Tallow trees we have had in pots for a number of years were late to bud and then had all their new growth burnt off twice - by frost and soon afterwards by a heatwave. We had thought them to be indestructible. Now we are concerned by their small sparse flaccid leaves and wonder if they will live beyond this year.

And I have lost the joy of summer. Yesterday I sought relief in our local swimming pool. Today I cooled off in front of our dinky window air conditioner and then flaked out on our bed, exhausted.
Tomorrow is yet another day close to the old century and then finally some relief. I hope for a few days of relatively mild temperatures in order to cool the Gallery. I ventured back there this evening to retrieve some fridge items. Opening the door was not pleasant.

So I'm putting a wish out to the universe. I understand that humanity is at fault for climate change. Some of us are now trying to make a difference. I just ask for a more typical autumn and a mild, showery winter to give us and the countryside time to recover before next summer's onslaught.

And for the rest of this summer, I shall heed that familiar saying - only mad dogs and Englishmen should venture out into the midday sun.

Thus endeth this whinge.