A-Z #19a (S) Part one

S is for SEASON (n.  one of the four periods of the year beginning astronomically at an equinox or solstice, but geographically at different dates in different climates)

I wonder if you thought I was going to talk about salt, pepper and the like.  Wrong!  I am not as great a cook as some of my fellow bloggers are so I'd find little to talk about.  It is the seasons of the year that I find most interesting.

SUMMER (a season between spring and autumn) in Australia is from 1 December to 28/29 February and is different in various geographical areas.  In Perth (where I live) it is quite different to that in other States of Australia and is generally VERY HOT.  It has always been so but of recent years our humidity has been on the increase much to everyone's displeasure.  A sign of climate change?  It is quite possible that this is the case but I fear if it is then we humans may have left it a tad too late to rectify the problem within the next hundred or so years.

Summer in the south of this country tends to travel from west to east so if Perth has really hot weather it is almost assured that South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania will have hot weather to varying degrees.  The northern parts of Australia have their very own climatic conditions which are different again to that in the south with cyclones and the like.  They are more semi-tropical of course.

I do not really like summer and have not done so since I was a child except when I could go swimming which I loved.  Not in the ocean as I am not fond of sea, salt, sand, surf or sharks for that matter.  I used to swim in our Swan River (it was so clean way back then) or in the estuary at Mandurah where we holidayed each year.

During the summer months, and even beyond, I do get tired of continual blue skies without a cloud in sight and weeks and weeks with no trace of rain.

I often wonder how we managed without airconditioning in our homes and cars but somehow we did but I couldn't live without it now.  It is not cheap to run but we manage thank goodness.

AUTUMN (called fall in some parts of the northern hemisphere).  We really don't have much of an autumn in Perth but rather an Indian summer where the heat of summer extends right through into April as it is doing this year.   Autumn in Oz of course is from 1 March to 31 May and in our eastern states where there are many more deciduous trees autumn is very beautiful.  There the temperatures tend to drop quite quickly after February with only the odd warmer day.  I wish ours did too. : )

WINTER (from 1 June to 31 August in Oz).  I truly love winter.  I don't mind windy days or grey skies and I love the rain too.  I like to lay in bed at night and hear the wind whistling around the house.  I am terrified of thunderstorms which I think may be more frequent than in previous years but with the use of earplugs I am able to stand them a wee bit better than I did.  I have a granddaughter who has inherited this fear as well and we both tend to check out the radar on the weather websites to see what may be heading in our direction.  Unfortunately for me our winters in Perth are very mild so not nearly enough cold days for me.  My ancestors came mainly from northern Scotland and Denmark so I wonder is that why I enjoy winter so much or did they leave to escape the cold.

My other half hails from England and continually tells me I have no idea what it is like to be cold and he is of course quite correct.  I did experience snow when in New Zealand and I loved it and enjoyed the cold days too.  I even made a snowman and 'he' thought me quite mad but it was so much fun.

Unfortunately my snowman didn't look anything like this one but then I was only a beginner. : )

I will do spring in part 2 of (S) as I would love to show some of our beautiful wildflowers of which we are very proud.