We Australians must be crazy to do some of the things we do. Take what I did today for example.
I woke up this morning and it was 19C with 84% humidity. As the day wore on, the temperature struggled to the high 20s and the humidity hovered around the 55-60% range. It was what you'd call 'muggy'. All the while the skies darkened with thunderclouds. All-in-all it was unpleasant to be moving around. Then about 12.45, we copped a short sharp thunderstorm which dumped about 10mm of rain and hail on us in 15 minutes and chilled the air by about 10C. For the rest of the afternoon, the temperature rose to the low 20s and the humidity to 75% or higher.
So what was I doing all day? After playing on the Internet for a while, then having an American Breakfast sandwich and cup of tea for breakfast, I started doing the Christmas decorations inside the house. And that's the crazy thing.
I've "decorated" my house with plastic replicas, made in China, of exotic Northern Hemisphere vegetation which, if grown here at all, would be at their aesthetic best in July. To make these plastic replicas feel at home, I've sprinkled white powder all about to replicate snow, which doesn't fall where I live, and if it did, it would be in July. All the while the house was filled with the sound of seasonal music. "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire ..." brings back memories of the rainswept car park of an ASDA supermarket in Grantham, England as the light began to fail at 4:00 in the afternoon. "Riding through the snow ..." A six hour drive into a westering Sun in an oven on wheels to see the family for a day or two over the holidays. Rugged up to shovel snow? No way. Slip, slop, slap* and create a dust cloud with a two stroke mower trying to make a sun dried lawn look presentable. [Slip on a shirt, slop on some sun screen and slap on a hat - anti-sun cancer procedure necessary for all Australians of Northern European ancestry]
And what for? To prepare for a gathering of the clan, promising to deliver good cheer, but actually providing an opportunity to rekindle the family bitch fights, eat too much, and be happy when to day ends and there are 360 days to go before the madness starts again.
And why do we do it? It started off as a primitive celebration that the end of winter darkness had come. Then the Christians came along and converted the celebration to their own ends. Finally the Capitalists came along with the Industrial Revolution and hi-jacked the celebration to give a boost to production by creating Demand that they wanted to supply.
I don't care about the negatives. I'm celebrating the positives: we've made it halfway through the Bush fire season and the Fire Demon has remained in his bottle.
Old Man Emu
