2016

I've kept this blog, on and off, since 2006. In 2015 I used it to chart daily encounters, images, thoughts and feelings about volcanic basalt/bluestone in Melbourne and Victoria, especially in the first part of the year. I plan to write a book provisionally titled Bluestone: An Emotional History, about human uses of and feelings for bluestone. But I am also working on quite a few other projects and a big grant application, especially now I am on research leave. I'm working mostly from home, then, for six months, and will need online sociability for company!


Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Adelaide one day; Melbourne the next

In all the vagaries of summer weather, one thing is pretty sure: whatever they're doing in Adelaide, we'll probably be doing half a day later, though not always in such an extreme fashion. Same goes for blogging, with Pavlov's Cat and me. Not for the first time has she pre-empted me on a bloggy topic.

This morning she mentions the hot night, and opening up the house when the temperature drops. In our house I am the one who obsessively patrols the doors and windows, opening and closing according to the time of day, the angle of the sun, and the direction of the wind, constantly modulating to maximise comfort.

Last night was Melbourne's third hottest night on record, going down to a minimum of 28.1 (that's 86, by the double-the-number-you-first-thought-of-and-add-30 method of conversion). We were heading for 39 today, but the cool change came in much earlier than expected, and we only got to 32 before the south-westerly breeze blew in. I'm now sitting with the french door in my study open; and it's perfectly pleasant. Because we'd had only one day of extreme heat, the old brick part of the house hasn't heated up at all, so we are off the hook for a few more days, I think, till the temperature climbs again. Hope it's pleasant on Saturday when we are off to the tennis for the final of the Open lead-up tournament. I also hope Roger Federer makes it through to Saturday...

OK, back to work now.

3 comments:

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

Great minds, my dear, great minds. Here it dropped all the way down to 27.2, around 6 am, which was when I got up and opened everything up. Momentarily.

But what is this "cool change" of which you speak? Must be one of the local Port Phillip Bay micro-climate thingies.

Word verification: 'colds'. I swear.

This old world is a new world said...

Oh that's very odd. Just when I thought I was sure of the weather (joke)...

You know, I suspect that the boffins at word verification are using a more sophisticated program, these days, one that's sensitive to content.

I used to think finding a word, or a semblance of a word, there, was akin to the finding of "O time thy pyramids" in Borges' "The Library of Babel", but don't you think it's becoming more and more common?

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

Actually it IS five or six degrees cooler here than it was yesterday, so you probably got an intensified version. But the real relief here is supposed to come through tonight.

I think you may be on to something re word verification. This one is 'flockst', as in 'Birds of a feather flockst together' (cf 'great minds' etc) or possibly 'It was too hot to plant snapdragons so we planted flockst instead', or perhaps even 'While shepherds watched their flockst by night', though I'm having trouble connecting that one to the weather.