Down by the river
After surviving Saturday, the hottest Melbourne day (44°c – around 112°f) since “Black Friday” in 1939 we decided to go for a walk on Sunday along the river to get out of the house and into the breeze. Down by the depressingly low and brown Yarra River there was not only a gentle breeze but even some long and very green grass. A sight for sore eyes these days. Amelia J slept in her pram or watched the trees while we ate sandwiches and felt ourselves slowly come back to the land of the living after a night of tossing and turning in the pea-soup heat. There were ducks, and people sitting on picnic rugs and in wooden boats and a jazz band singing by the kiosk and people playing bocce and cricket and frisbee and water polo in their kayaks. It really was just like a scene from a Lasse Hallström movie only enhanced by the large group of women sitting on folding chairs under the trees all working away on large wooden spinning wheels.
So there are a few days reprieve before it heats up again on Wednesday.
good lord… 112F actually sounds nice… it was 6F here 2 days ago… *shiver*
And you spelled his name right too! 🙂
Yep! And I even hunted down the special ö character.
I understand. The heat is also horribly bad up here in Sydney, not to mention all the bush fires threatening homes and lives.
I don’t know which is better: extremely hot weather or extremely cold weather. Right now, I’d be glad to shed all these layers of clothes and painfully cold weather in Toronto for your hot day over there! Toronto’s been under some unusually (bitterly) cold weather for over two weeks already. Today, the temp is -22C with windchill of -30C.
All weather extremes are miserable. The grass is always greener though. In 6 months I’ll be ranting about the heat.
I felt for you as we watched the Williams sisters kick a** at the Australian Open. Stay cool!
=( i wanted to give you credit for that ö-letter. but i wasn’t alone. anyway. curiosa is it pronounced like french sound “eux” – but shorter when it’s in a sentence. ö is also the word for island in swedish. =) bye.
Melbourne winters are really quite mild compared to our extreme summers. Very rarely do we get down to freezing point – I have only seen it snow once in my life, and that was in Canada a few years ago. That year we took a bus into Toronto and walked down the street in -21c (with the wind chill). The novelty of it all was quite exciting until it felt like the air was freezing in my lungs.
It’s been so cold here in New York City, that I can’t wait for it to hit 40F and take my shirt off. It was 30F the other day and everyone in the office agreed that it was “warm”.
I may not comment much, but I do read your journal daily. But I had to comment today:
44º ?! You make me feel lucky to live in Victoria… for us, 28º is fantastically hot…
Wow. And here in Iowa, USA, we are surviving through some of the coldest temperatures I’ve experienced! Care to trade a -10 or so (in F) for some heat? That way we can both stay in the temperate zone, hah!
last saturday was hell on earth! the fruit shop where I work in Kew was one big wilty zone…(we took turns to go out the back and stand in the cool room!)
having lil picnics with families..rock 🙂
What a beautiful description! Parts of your life sound like a fairytale :).
pretty amazing … considering it was -40 celsius here last week. i think i’d prefer your australian weather over my canadian winter!
beat this everyone, last week here in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada at 6am one day the temperature registered -38C and with the windchill it was -53C.
I dont leave home much. Its yuckie.
Claire, beautiful site by the way, you are a very talented gal.
I wish I lived on you site of the planet 😉 – here it’s cold, and snowy.