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30 September, 2005, 04:39 pm
When in doubt about what to say, talk about the weather! When I lived in the UK, weather was always a good conversation starter. "It's cold enough to freeze brass monkeys this morning," my dad used to say, stamping his feet and rubbing his hands together. Then he'd go and stand in front of the fire to roast his seat-a fire my mother had left her cosy bed an hour earlier to light, so her family would have a warm room to breakfast together in.
I grew up with coal fires in an open grate. Although very pretty on Christmas cards, they were hugely air polluting, of course, and the main source of the London pea-souper fogs of the past. Most of us know better about such fuels now.
We've had a wet winter here in Western Australia, and spring is just as soggy. I'm not complaining. Our state, which covers a third of the Australian continent is usually fairly dry and temperatures can reach the mid 40s at times in summer, so any rain is welcome to fill the dams.
We're on permanent water restrictions here now, yet oddly, most of us have lawns, which we manage to maintain in the face of it, so we don't take the constant threat of drought seriously enough. ...
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