Change of Season

Ssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.......chip, chip, chip, chip, chip, CHIP, CHIP, CHIP!

Ssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.......chip, chip, chip, chip, chip, CHIP, CHIP, CHIP!

There’s a message going out on the cicada telegraph; that message is that summer is coming. At only 9.30am the temperature is 27°C and climbing. Mt Gravatt is merely a soft silhouette through the smoky haze that’s dirtying a pale, dry sky. It looks hotter than it really is. Sleeveless, we shuffle around the verandah chasing the shade. The cricket commentary burbles away in the background, a soothing ever-present tonic; you can’t rush around with that idle chatter setting the beat to a summery Sunday. Some people meditate to so-called relaxation music, but for my money you can’t beat the cricket for slowing the heart rate.

I had my first surf swim of the season yesterday, and, as it is every time this year, I underestimated the fierceness of the sun and came home with sunburn. I was alert enough to save my shoulders, face and arms with sunscreen, but my big round belly is now a big round RED belly. Naked I look like one of those strawberry and cream lollies. And with scorched knees, of all things. Sun dodging seems to be a lesson I need to learn afresh each year.

Tanya brought baby Thomas into the world this morning. His life is beginning at this very Queensland time of year, a time of mangoes, watermelon, hammocks, swimming, siestas. It seems just right: change of season for all of us, and change of life seasons for Mike and Tan. It’s all beginnings right now. Our bambinos are due at the other end of the heat madness, so they’ll come into a world of... what? I can’t even remember what the end of summer’s like right now. In just the way that avoiding the sun seemed foreign yesterday, so I’ll make the same mistakes as the weather cools: forgetting to take a jumper when I go out, remembering to shut windows against the cool... Every year it seems that I’m encountering these things for the first time. And then, I’ll be encountering parenthood along with the rest of it.

Congratulations, Mike and Tan. You’ll be great parents.