It's Still Winter

 although today feels more like Spring - at least until you (and by you I mean me) realise that you're wearing thick track pants, a log sleeved (and very warm) winter top, a thick cardigan and finger less gloves so you can type. As you might guess we're not too good at preparing for the cold here. We're pretty good at dealing with summer heat with most houses with air conditioning - and there I go again saying summer.  It's silly because it doesn't suit our seasons at all. There's an unofficial move to use the local Noongar which don't rely on arbitrary dates but go more on what the weather is actually like. By that calendar we're now in Djilba which has wet days but increasingly there are fine days and cold nights.

Back to how we cool our houses. The vast majority of houses have evaporative air conditioning which works well in dry heat which is what we have mostly. It's not so good when it's humid and here climate change is having an impact with the number of humid days increasing.  Its other limitation is that it only cools the air not warms it.  - and we have not traditionally built our houses for cold. Roof insulation has been mandatory for some considerable time but that's more aimed at te summer heat striking down. More modern houses are equipped with reverse cycle air conditioning but that still leaves at least half of all of the houses without it. 

We do have heaters  - in our case we're fortunate because we have better than most insulation together with a big heater that pumps out heat and combined with ceiling fans effectively heats the whole house quickly. Others aren't so lucky but even so there's also a reluctance of many to put any heating on except in the evening. You can tell when it's a chilly day in Perth because that's when somewhat shame faced someone will sidle up to you and admit to turning on the heater during the day. 

I'm somewhat fixated on the weather at the moment because I have been supposed to be having two Vegepod raised garden beds installed for more than a month. I should be getting ready to put in seedlings for my summer vegetable garden but Vegepod the kits are still in the garage and 36 bags of potting mix and 180 paving slabs are sitting out in the garden waiting for workers with a compacter to come, put down paving and put the kits together. 

So far the company has postponed because they've been hit by COVID - possible, wet weather so the paving can't be done - plausible, and the latest - the paver has the flu - maybe but my suspicions have raised because another worker from the company who was here to do some gardening mentioned the paver had quit. Hmm. 

If it wasn't for the paving for which we don't have the equipment I'd ask Virgo and her husband if they would help us and setting up the actual pods wouldn't be too difficult. Instead we shall just have to wait and hope they can get their act together, I guess, because at the moment here skilled workers and tradespeople of any ilk are in acutely short supply. That's what happens when a country that relies heavily on bringing in qualified workers closes its borders as Australia did during the pandemic.

Our latest date for the work to be done is next Wednesday. I won't be holding my breath.

In something to raise my spirits somewhat - the final flock of little brown birds is making the most of the last of the daylight to bathe in the bird bath.