Always take the weather …

So we’re in transition at the moment – autumn has officially arrived and in a few weeks the clock will go back, heralding in darker evenings. But to be honest, autumn over here could well be the best of all the seasons. When the mercury’s in the mid or high 30’s you tend to spend a lot of time thinking about which air conditioned room you’re going to seek sanctuary in next. Those super-high temperatures of the summer make it difficult to do anything outdoorsy during the middle of the day and while that’s as good an excuse as any to sip an ice-cool beer down at the local boozer, it does hamper days out a bit.

So the transitional seasons, spring and autumn are often the best. Spring’s great, beause of the forthcoming warmer temperatures it heralds, but in autumn you have the advantage of a lovely warm ocean. All summer the water’s been baked by the sun and it’ll carry that warmth right through the next few months. So where I live in South Coast, New South Wales, the average daytime temperature is 26 or 27 degrees, which as far as I’m concerned is damn near perfect and the sea is still about 22 or 23 degrees, which as far as I’m concerned is damn near perfect. At night the temperatures drop nicely which means that people like my missus can get a good nights sleep without constantly thrashing around in a pool of sweat. Personally speaking I’m one of those bods that can stick a solitary foot outside the sheet or duvet and cool off, but my missus is built for cooler latitudes and has problems sleeping during the hot summer months. So it’s a win-win situation. Ideal temperate temperatures, perfect water conditions.

Liz treated me to a slap-up Italian Sausage Roll and Ham Kettle Chips down at the river a couple of days ago. On such occasions, I’m always surprised at how nice the area we live in really is. I know most of us migrants think we live in the best part of Oz (well, apart from our cousins in Perth    ) but this really is a truly lovely bit of the planet. We have this huge wide lazy river, a long unspoilt beach fringed by national park, mountains, hills, tracks, paths, boat-ramps, harbours and largely uncongested roads. As we sat on the bench next to the river eating our lunch, the only other person for miles was a lone fisherman sat on the jetty.

Peep pressure …
There are always fads and crazes at schools. Things seem to spreadh by osmosis from one school to another. When I was Jack’s age it was things like Space Dust, Slime, space hoppers, Slinkies and Raleigh Choppers. I even remember one year when, somewhat bizarrely, jews harps (or jaw harps as we’re supposed to call them in this politically correct age) were all the rage.

Thus far there have been several crazes in Jack’s school. Handball and Pokemon stand out. The latest craze on planet Jack is Backugan. These are little monster models that you roll across special magnetic cards and they pop opent to reveal an alien inside. $35 gets you three Bakugan and six cards. There are 540 Bakugan in the range (so far) and you are encouraged to ‘collect them all’. When I pointed out to Jack that the cost of the entire range was $540 he blinked at me and remained enigmatically silent.

Jack has been going on about Backugan for weeks. In fact he confessed that most nights he dreamed about them. Liz found this so amusing that she made a Backugan temple for Jack who kindly posed in front of it when he came home from school.

CSI London
Love this very funny CSI spoof. Ermmm, probably not safe for work. Unless you own your own company, in which case get stuck in.

More boats …
Another Sunday, another four hours of training in the IRB down at the beach. Not so many misadventures for the assembled students this time though, mainly because nobody was taking any risks due to much more lively surf. The tide was low, which meant that the sandbank was exposed and thus launching the boat was a royal pain in the butt, because you had to drag it across 15metres of sand to get it close enough to the shorebreak to get some water under the prop. The waves were breaking all the way out, which meant you had to stay frosty at all times for fear of some rogue 2m wave dropping on your head. Nobody fell out of the boats this time, which is a minor miracle, but we did manage to break two of the motors, which was kind of inevitable.

They’re talking about putting me and fellow driving-trainee Matt through our tests in about three weeks time, which should prove interesting. The only part of the test that concerns me is the solo drive. Those ribs behave far far differently when you don’t have any crew to trim the front of the boat. It’s incredibly easy to roll it or flip it over backwards and so you have to move from the traditional driving position on the rear of the port pontoon, to sitting inside the boat on the floor to keep it slightly more balanced. All I can hope is that the conditions are forgiving on the day! There again I wished for that when I took my bronze and instead I got a 2m shorebreak.

And finally …
The local TV listings magazine that I had been writing for has, unfortunately, closed. This is a real shame as it was a superb promotional tool for my PC business, to the extent that I stopped flyering entirely. Oh well, best invest in a new pair of Crocs.