Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Change of Seasons


I love this time of year in Sydney. The winter quilts come off & they're stowed at the top of the wardrobe until next May. The weather is not very hot yet, not as hot as it will get over the next five months. It's warm enough to go about with thin cotton clothing, no sleeves, shorts, but not so hot that you have to cover up and race for shade to escape the baking radiance of the sun.

On Botany Bay, the kiteboarders get out in the wind and ride the choppy water.


In November the jacarandas bloom: lovely exotics. Strong perfume of jasmine on the night breeze and the Christmas trees turning pink and then red. No Christmas beetles these days, though. When I was a child, November and December meant flying hordes of them. My brothers caught them, raced them in competitions. Colours like gemstones.


And more recently in Sydney, November means Sculpture by the Sea, ranged along the cliff walk from Tamarama to Bondi Beach.





11 comments:

  1. so weird to see your pics and read you writing about spring and summer, when we are readying for winter.

    The leaves are down, all the colours gone.
    However we have been having a good stretch of warm weather. Which has been lovely.

    OH and your pictures are great!

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  2. Thanks Penny. In a couple of weeks when we get into the hot, humid baking days, I'll be thinking of the cold weather in the northern hemisphere and wishing I could be there, just to feel a little more comfortable.

    Love your phrase: "The leaves are down, all the colours gone".

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  3. But, soon we will have the sparkle of snow.
    Haven't any yet, or not much to speak of, but now that it is December it is inevitable.

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  4. Lovely Jacarandas Queen, beautiful colours, it looks like nice and warm around there now. Is the skull on the beach made out of plastic bottles? I couldn't quite make out what materials they have used for it.

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  5. Yes, plastic bottles, if I recall. A comment about water, and waste and where we're going, I think.

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  6. Back in the old days we had glass bottles that we could take back to the shops to get a small refund, a good way for kids to make a little bit of money and tidy the place up too, these things had value then but now plastic bottles are used once and thrown away.

    At the beach here I reckon that we actually get more plastic than wood washed up, at least it does seem like it.

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  7. Hi john,
    I hardly ever see wood on the beach here: thongs (flip flops) yes, cigarette butts. . . I could go on for an eternity but I'm making myself sick. And something I forgot to mention about the water-bottle sculpture is that we have so little water in Australia. Not alone in that in the world, of course, but some environmentalists think it must severely limit our sustainable population, and the immigration program should take it into account.

    And then the craze for bottled water means that we're drinking stuff that's a lot more expensive than petrol. I sometimes buy a bottle of water if I can't get free tapwater when I'm out, or I've forgotten to bring my own; however, at the moment our tap water in Sydney hasn't been recycled and it's actually a lot cleaner than some of the stuff that is being sold. There is one town in NSW that has done away with selling bottled water and encourages people to bring their own bottles and fill them from the taps. All sorts of benefits from that, of course. I always keep my plastic bottles, when I buy water, and reuse them for storing tap water.

    We used to collect glass bottles and take them back to the shops for a little pocket money too. South Australia is the only state that still allows for a refund on bottles. Don't know why it's so hard for other states. The will, I suppose.

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  8. I remember picking up glass bottles and taking them to the store, pulling my wagon, gosh....I was little then. Surely under 8 yrs old.

    Of course that is when kids wondered the neighbourhood..... all day long....only going home to eat.....and then to wash and go to bed.

    How much fun we had, so much freedom,and much less toys

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  9. oops that o should have been an a

    wandered the neighbourhood...

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  10. Hi Penny,

    Yes, the golden past. I can remember when I was little, too, riding around the streets on my bike with friends and neighbours. My bike was a horse, like Fury, the horse in the TV series we watched after school. I tied a rope to the handle bars and that was the reins. (I had to supply the neighs and nickers for my mute beast.) Hadn't thought about that for a long time, but your memory of collecting bottles brought it up.

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  11. The Weather of Sydney is much pleasant and fine. It always has an excellent weather and cool winds blow with a fresh fragrance of flowers around everywhere.

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