What is Spring (or Fall for those of you in the Southern Hemisphere) like where you are? Here we don’t notice the birds, we notice the wind. Our elevation is over 7200 feet and we’re well aware when the jet stream shifts. I put on my ankle weights when I go for a walk. Can’t take too many chances. 🙂
Greetings from the UK where WIND is compulsory. It’s everywhere. Which in no mean way explains why women are expected to wear hats – and keep them on – during Ascot, Henley, weddings and funerals. And on your average day.
Having said that South coast not too bad. Or in the immortal words of my mother who sometimes is even more smiley than you: “What do you expect, Ursula? You do live on an ISLAND.” True. To ponder on for not too long.
Yes, spring is here. The joy of it. Considering how small birds are it’s amazing how much noise they make.
U
Most of Australia’s native trees aren’t deciduous so Autumn is less noticeable here. Sydney is a pretty mild climate. We get some wind, more around the change of seasons rather than continually.
Jean, your elevation is about as high as Australia gets. (We think of Australia as having mountains – but this is probably laughable to those who have real mountains, our mountains probably wouldn’t be counted as foothills in most places.)
Evan I keep forgetting you’re from Australia. Tom’s brother (his only sibling) & family lived in Sidney for 6 years.
Wind & hats. I saw a woman downtown who was holding her hat on. I told her I knew she was from out of town. That’s because the 1st thing you do when you move here is sew ties on your hats.
Why can’t someone invent a hat with an aerofoyle on it or something so the wind makes it stay on? Or maybe a hit with a windscreen?
Where I live it is often sunny and windy at the same time – so I want a sunhat but the wind makes it hard to keep on. (Australia has a very high rate of skin cancer. Newsflash to Anglo-Australians: This isn’t England.)
Hi BHB, I hope Tom’s brother liked Sydney. Despite it becoming a busy, hustling city it can still be a wonderful place to live.
Autumn here is similar to Evans (Australia) – the wind dashes about pulling leaves of every tree up and down the street (well not every tree but most) – those same leaves flutter about hopeless until they land in a muddy puddle or hard up again the kerb – where the continue to gather, like it’s a party. Changing colours of their skirts as well…
Oops meaning of skirts is required methinks. When I was a child my Mother said those leaves belonged to fairies and they were were their
Spring green dresses; Autumn party frocks and so on. If they happened to be living in an oak tree they also had special hats which would fall to the ground at some point and be acorns…I believed her as well!
So everytime I see a leave flutter to the ground, I worry that the fairy has nothing to wear or that somehow she to is enfolded in the autumn leaf and is dropping to the ground…Mother said that during the winter they didn’t need any leaf frocks because they clasped the branches and braced themselves again the wind/wet/cold until Springtime when new glossy green leaf frocks were just the ticket etc…
Ursula,
Here the wind tends to be seasonal, it’s especially noticeable in March. I always wear hats outside, but as BHB points out, they do have ties. Actually, they don’t tie, they have a little ball like the one shown here. The brim on my hat isn’t that wide, though. (I have several gold ones, a white one and a red one), but the tie doesn’t show in this picture.
BHB,
What did Tom’s brother do in Australia? I’m always curious.
Evan,
Do you have a lot of eucalyptus trees? We had a lot of them as windbreaks when I was a kid in California, and I’ve always loved the smell.
The highest mountain in New Mexico is Wheeler Peak, 13141 feet. Not high by some standards, but higher than us.
Cathy,
What great descriptions! Thank you. 🙂
Heaps of eucalypts. They dominate all of temperate Australia.
Wheeler Peak is slightly less than double our highest mountain.
Evan,
I’m not surprised about the eucalypts. The first time I heard the word Australia was when my folks told me that’s where the trees originally came from. They thrive in California because the climate is similar.
Mountains are funny, because the elevation of our “valleys” is about 5000-6000 ft. So our mountains probably don’t look much higher than yours.
We have just celebrated our spring festival Holi. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holi) For us it is the beginning of the hot season unlike for you. We will see increasing temperatures till the monsoon rains come in by end May, early June. Pune, where I live is on the Western Ranges and is located 560 Mts above mean sea level and is dry. Summers are not too bad as we have the mountain breeze coming down and the sea breeze moving up. Currently our temperatures are around 36°C / 18°C which will move upto around 40/25 in May. Trees and bushes are flowering and at the same time many trees go dry too. At least I, don’t see any spring madness around!
Answering your question, Tom’s brother is a Presbyterian minister so did something about that in Australia.
rummuser,
We complain about the heat on the rare days it gets to 36°C (97°F). That would be in the summer, not this time of year. We do have the same problem with dryness even as some plants and trees are blossoming. And, of course, there’s the fire danger. The whole state was under red flag alert the first day of spring. Here’s that day’s report on wind and fire danger.
bikehikebabe,
Is Tom’s brother older or younger? It never occurred to me that a brother of Tom would be a minister. (Well, truth be told, I never even wondered if Tom had siblings.) Were Tom’s parents religious?
“Is Tom’s brother older or younger? ”
Tom was 7 when his father died. His mother was pregnant with his brother. (Father died from pneumonia after a WET fishing trip, penicillin not yet discovered.) So brother 7 1/2 years younger.
“Were Tom’s parents religious?” No It is just a profession like doctor or lawyer. His cousin also one. Presbyterians aren’t religious. They aren’t the born-again Jesus types.
Clarify—Presbyterians are teachers of religion.
bikehikebabe,
Thanks for the information. That must have been hard for the mother and kids, having the father die that young. What did the mother do?
The mother moved into her parent’s house. Her brother gave her $10,000 which was a lot of money in 1940. She invested money all her life, traveled abroad everywhere, & never worked. Died at age 96 in the house she was born in, having never remarried.
BTW She was a nerd too. (Oh that’s your CheerfulMonk blog.) When Tom got home from school, books were all over the dinning table & they read/studied.
Here’s what the minister’s wife (my sister-in-law) had to say:
“Presbyterians are religious – we just don’t stand on corners preaching. The trouble with being in a ‘preacher family’ is that people tend to pigeon hole you and only think of you as ‘churchy type’. That can be hard to deal with. Ministers and their families have other interests besides the church.”
The seasonal variations in north india are quite extreme and adapting to growing heat is quite a shift.
bhb
there you go – bookworms started in Toms’ family when they were young.
A few years ago (actually more than a few) I was given a whole pile of little books from my childhood. Somehow I hadn’t inherited them but my older sister had for her children. Some are a bit battered but obviously I read wide range…
One of the things I am keen to do sometime this year is get a moreorless matching set of bookshelves and get out ALL my books – currently I’m restricted having awkward shelving units that only hold a few ‘print publications’
and later this year, I will want to read – right now I am still in Uni/study/reading mode…
bikehikebabe,
I’m glad Tom’s mother had such support. It sounds as if she did quite well. For some reason it warms my heart that she loved books too. And that she shared that love with her sons.
What did her brother do? It sounds as if he was quite well off.
gaelikaa,
When we went to India years ago it was in November. I tend to wilt in the heat, so I wouldn’t be keen to go there when it’s really warm.
Cathy,
It won’t be long now. When is the end of the Uni year? I’m excited for you.
bikehikebabe,
In the old days from what I hear, pastors tended to be poor and their children were supposed to be angels. Even though they had to buck stereotypes, it sounds as if Tom’s brother’s family had more choices. I assume they had children? If so what did the children end up doing?
I still have to pass this ‘paper’ but if all goes according to plan I will done/dusted by end of June…
I already have accomplished a great many papers and information but it will be even better to actually have it completed.
I won’t get the formal papers until Spring time – can’t remember exactly which month but think it’s September capping
Spring weather, huh?
Variable….
A couple of weeks ago, it was warm. We were in Dallas for the annual Dallas Quilt Show — spur of the moment trip — with wonderful spring weather. Then, during the night before we drove home, it turned very cold and windy.
Over the next week, it got warmer again, warm enough to be comfortable without a jacket. On Monday, as we were throwing things in bags for a quick trip to Virginia, I asked Karen if she had packed jackets or sweatshirts. “Why,” she asked. “Well, I’ve been reading a guy’s blog who does extended forecasts and he’s been saying for a week that it’s going to be cold, mainly in the northeast, but extending down into the south.” Sure enough, the day after we got to Norfolk, it turned unseasonably colder.
I expect more variability for a while. I was looking through some stuff from 2007 and we had snow a couple of weeks into April.
Mike
A friend of mine in the states – sent me a picture of her first spring purple bulbs in bloom
The next day she wrote that snow had fallen and they had disappeared…
We had very changeable weather as well:
A couple of weeks ago it suddenly got very cold, enough for me to be looking for extra blankets
Then a week later it was all hot and hot. OK not as hot as Summer but definitely not falling down to Autumn as above – blankets off bed
Since I think Thursday – very wet, damp and not great – chilly too…
Today, still overcast and slightly damp, only small rain drops from time to time but boy it is HUMID +++. I was in the garden clipping up the prunings from the other day (continuous job) and I was so sticky/sweaty (along with mossies out for lunch on me) I had to come inside…
Spring in Arkansas doesn’t usually include tulips, unless they were recently planted. Winters here are generally too warm and tulips apparently require a cold winter to bloom. We had tulips come back last year… and after we got home this evening, Karen spotted tulip buds and said she saw at least 6. Our azaleas are about ready to bloom. We’ve seen snow on the blossoms in the past.
Spring in Arkansas doesn’t usually include tulips, unless they were recently planted. Winters here are generally too warm and tulips apparently require a cold winter to bloom. We had tulips come back last year… and after we got home this evening, Karen spotted tulip buds and said she saw at least 6 (and, yes, it was cold enough this winter… I’d have been surprised if we didn’t have tulips). Our azaleas are about ready to bloom. We’ve seen snow on the blossoms in the past.
Cathy,
Good luck on getting your degree without too much hassle. I’m impressed by all the work you’ve done.
Mike and Cathy,
The weather is variable here, too. The first year we were here (1974) we had two feet of snow the first week of April. That was unusual but when Kaitlin was little a circus would come to town the first weekend in June. Invariably the weather would turn cold with snow flurries. We would sit on the bleachers in our arctic parkas while the poor performers shivered in their tights. Our last frost was usually around the end of May. Hail can be a big problem even during the summer.
We can grow tulips, but this isn’t azalea country. They’re one of my favorite flowers, and when I see one I buy it in a pot to enjoy inside.
Cathy,
PS The trouble with humidity is it doesn’t take much of a temperature shift to go between too hot and too cold. I sympathize with you on that.
Here’s what the other minister’s wife said:
Presbyterianism is a religion, so yes, we are religious. Unfortunately, that term has gotten a bad rap. I think we are all religious by definition. However, there are many ways to express it.
By dry, I meant low humidity, compared to our coastal towns, nearest being Mumbai. We do not get forest fires as there is always some humidity. For instance, today’s report shows low humidity during the day and higher in the night. Sea breeze blows in from the Arabian sea in the evenings and increased the humidity. (http://www.timeanddate.com/weather/india/pune)
Jean, it occurs to me that this post is very British. By that I mean that they constantly discuss the weather!
rummuser,
I recently read an article that said only boring people talk about the weather. I disagree, I think it’s a fascinating subject, especially when discussing it with people in other areas. I do occasionally talk about other things, though.