Too hot to trot

Holey Moley Guacomole! It's officially a scorcher again today here on the East Coast of Oz, following many weeks of scorcher-ness. I am usually situated close to the water in the mildly more northern regions of the East Coast which seem to miss the relentless dry heat of the more Southern States, and the dripping tropics of the Northern States. Lucky us. ie I live harbour-side in Sydney. But yesterday was a sharp reminder that not everyone in Sydneytown gets it is mild and sea-breeze blown as we do - as I came out west on the train, an hour inland, on my way to a friend's place to house and dog sit, it did feel hotter and hotter.

Last night was really very hot.

I got up super early this morning (for a Saturday) and in the cool morning air swiftly walked up to the shops to stock up on fresh fruit and veg and various seeds and grains to go with the standard pantry stuff my friend kindly stocked up on for my stay. Oh yeah, and vanilla icecream (low fat, so that's just basically a calcium hit right? Almost a health tonic - I'm sure I remember that being in the liver cleansing diet right after slippery elm and lemon juice).

This morning's walk reminded me that this is an awkward suburb, in terms of most people's regard - being somewhere between westie shopping mall dystopia and idyllic mountain towns. It could, perhaps unkindly, be considered to have all the style and grace, visible heritage and abundant greenery of the big western centres like Penrith (that is - little), combined with the super convenience and abundance of facilities that characterise mountain towns (err, sometimes less than great). But that would be a total glass half empty description. It's not really it's fault - it's kind of a boundary town, influenced by being sandwiched between these two zones, and not being particularly and outstandingly one or the other. And it doesn't help that it's main street is carved down the middle with a main road so unfriendly to pedestrians that it has a fence down the middle and a big pedestrian bridge over it. Hardly conducive to connectivity, or a sense of strolling through a peaceful, people friendly town.

But, surprisingly, rather than being scorched and scowling about the deficiencies of local urban design and cross about their unstylish cafes or the lack of shade on their footpaths or the lack of chi chi planters with stylish herbs dotted down their main street, the locals all seemed really nice. I had more people jump up to open doors for me (as I grappled with box of groceries), chat and smile in a an hour and a half than I have in the preceeding month and a half back in the big smoke. And that's despite living in a suburb that supposedly has a village feel and is full of quirky characters, for the city. Posing that age old chestnut - stylish and bitchy or homely and earnest and nice - which do we really prefer?

The optimistic cool of the morning didn't last, however, and now, in the middle of the day it is well and truly hot again. I walked outside earlier to get the dog's food out of the shed that it's stored in, and had the strangely delightful crunchy massage feeling of once thick lush lawn which has now dried to a crisp like some toasted seaweed garnish to a Japanese soup (um - the kind of soup you walk on? Terrible metaphor), cushioning my bare footed steps. It made me smile and I walked around some more just to feel it.

My friend whose house I am sitting on's pot plants are somewhat beleaguered by the heat, and several have lost green to brown on the leaf front. I secretly think her niece who was here the last couple of weeks was a bit patchy with her pot watering, Hmm, handy hint - if you are going to house sit team style (ie the time is being shared amongst a few people), volunteer for the first slot rather than the last slot - less dead plant guilt :) But the niece did leave me lots of additional cute little instruction notes about how things work and where things are, which was nice.

Oh fuck it, it's totally too hot to write anymore. I think I'm going to go have a cool bath and read my book. More tales of housesitting later - including 'what am I doing wrong that the CD player wont work?', 'Can I really bring myself to watch one of the 4 dvds already here or will I brave the heat to head to the store to borrow one?' (prizes if anyone can guess what they are), 'Miniature Lassie dogs - will they save very small people from the broken down well?', 'Other people's bookshelves - what do they reveal about the person?', 'How come when I was at the shops I was clear that I would drink iced herbal tea and water all weekend and now I wish I'd bought some beer?' and the controversial 'Housesitting and cleaning for the visually sensitive - is it ever ok to rearrange things just a little...? aka 'Housesitting interior design challenges for the slightly OCD'.