Wish I Was There

The lady who makes the coffee in the university refectory is worried. She came to work in a thick belted cardigan and a fur-lined deer stalker hat, which she was still wearing as she poured the extra shot into my long black.

“I’ve seen the weather report for the rest of the week” she confided, “Thursday is going to be a shocker, thirteen degrees they’ve said”.

I glanced outside at the path leading from the coffee shop to the main campus where several people sat drinking coffee in the sunshine, albeit togged up in fleece jackets.

“You don’t know what cold is” I replied. “try the north of England in January, you’ll need that furry hat over there”

“Why, how cold does it get?”

“Five or six degrees, regularly”

“In the daytime?”. She stopped in her tracks, stopped frothing up the hot milk and gave her full attention to the prospect of five or six degrees in the daytime. It was obviously all too much for her because she pulled the hat a bit further over her ears before she carried on with the milk.

“That’s ridiculous” was her final word on the matter.

I’ll remember that when we get home and the pilot gives us the usual “we’re just beginning our descent into Manchester. The outside temperature is two degrees and it’s pissing with rain”.

When I got into work, my colleague Mary was standing behind the reception desk shuffling papers against her bosom. She’s had another weekend with the in-laws, who are driving her mad. I caught the end of her conversation with Kath.

“So she’s scattered him in the garden without even consulting Brian”.

“What, just on the lawn?”

“Under the tree in the corner. And the worst thing is, the thing I keep coming back to, when she dies and the house gets sold, whoever buys it will knock it down and start all over again and they won’t have a clue that Bill’s scattered on the garden. I mean, it’s hardly a peaceful resting place for him”.

I snook off into my office and drank my coffee, wishing I was back in FNQ. I never thought I'd say it but Sydney's such a drag after a week in the tropics.