2018 is here
And humidity with it
January 6, 2018One unanticipated benefit of not having Daylight Savings is that we could watch the Sydney fireworks at 11pm and go to bed early!
Anthony has been getting up at 3.30 every morning for Mars and Jupiter imaging. When he gets back at about 5.30 he's too awake to go to bed so he works in the garden for a couple of hours. He's rediscovered rockeries we never knew existed, and has been removing an endless succession of viciously spiny plants. We know the previous owners planted them deliberately as some are in pots! One recently, and unexpectedly, flowered and we stared at the "flower" trying to decide whether it was a triffid, something out of Dr Who, or a baby Audrey 2 (from Little Shop of Horrors).
The long succession of hot days (well, 37-39C which the locals don't think of as hot. Apparently when it sits in the 40s it's hot) showed us where we lack insulation, where the roof needs extra Solargard paint, and where we need more shade onto walls. Anthony has been working every morning to fix these a bit at a time, and the house is gradually becoming more comfortable. I have no idea how people live up here without these things (and many do: people up on the claims live in unpainted, uninsulated corrugated iron shacks) but maybe we'll acclimate too and join them in wearing jumpers in the winter when it's a chilly 25C...
We've started getting summer storms, which lead to humid days, which lead to more storms. One formed up right over us the other night, with a very, very close lightning strike. We went looking for what it might have hit but couldn't see any obvious strike sites. A friend told us we'll know if it was a tree as it'll die in the next couple of months, its trunk petrified by the blast. That sounds really interesting so we'll keep an eye out.