Morning at the Beach

Funny weather we've been having in Sydney over the last couple of days. It was around the 29 degree mark yesterday, a lovely hot wind blowing in off the Pacific. We headed down to Maroubra and ate a picnic lunch on the beach before installing ourselves in the playground nextdoor. The next thing, without any warning, a sudden gust of warm wind from the opposite direction sent hats flying off, litter scattering all over the place, and it was gone as quickly as it arrived.

But ten minutes later, an almighty cold gust of wind blew in from somewhere and summer was transformed back into spring at the flick of a switch; the strangest sensation because your skin went from basking in a tropical wind to being covered in a sort of cold fine mist, literally within a second. And with it came storms of dust whipped up from dry patches of ground, racing across the roads behind the beach, where everyone was retreating back to their cars clutching half-eaten barbeques and tupperware boxes of fruit salad.

I don't really understand how the Sydney weather works and haven't got the time to find out, but it's certainly a bit odd and it's nothing like the sort of weather we get back in the UK, just because it's so unpredictable and extreme. And we're not the first to notice this either.

Darren's reading a book from the library at the moment called "1788; A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson", which was written by Watkin Tench. Watkin Tench was a captain in the British marine corps, who arrived into Sydney Cove on the first fleet (and who was Sydney anyway? The city was named after Lord Sydney, who was the British home secretary back in 1788. In fact, Sydney Cove referred only to the area around Circular Quay, the city itself was originally called Albion, but the name never took off).

Anyway, Watkin Tench kept a diary, a bit like I'm doing, though there were fewer reference to Coles supermarket and more references to cockatoo soup, which I'm choosing to ignore. The diary's a cracking read, not just because of the gorgeous flowery language but because it reveals how odd this continent seemed to the first Europeans to set up camp.

In his diary, Tench describes the extremes of weather and unpredictability of the temperatures, including an occasion when there was ice in Parramatta (15 miles away) and soaring temperatures in Sydney. On relaying this to other sailors at the Cape of Good Hope, none of them had ever heard of a climate like this in all their travels across the globe:-

The thermometer has been known to alter at Rosehill (Parammatta), in the course of nine hours, more than 50 degrees farenheight.

On December 28th at 1.15pm the temperature stood at only 89 degrees, having, from a sudden shift of wind, fallen 13 degrees in fifteen minutes. The weather is changeable beyond any other I have ever heard of.

Even this heat was to be far exceeded in the latter end of the following February. Unluckily they had no thermometer to ascertain it's precise height. It must, however, have been intense, from the effects it produced. An immense flight of bats driven before the wind covered all the trees around the settlement, whence they every moment dropped dead or in a dying state, unable longer to endure the burning state of the atmosphere, nor did the parakeets, though tropical birds, bear it better. The ground was strewed with them in the same condition as the bats.

I'm starting to understand why the weather forecasts are so vague.

Anyway, Ella was up at 5.45am again this morning, at least, that's what time she came sidling up to me though she might have been awake for much longer for all I know. It was Darren's turn to get up, which was unfortunate as he'd been up shouting at the telly until 1.30am (because England were busy beating the Aussies at rugby), so he was like a bear with a sore head scrabbling around for some clothes. Parents of small children all across Sydney are counting down until daylight saving at the end of the month because everyone's kids are doing the same thing. For my part, the thought of those dark January mornings is now beginning to hold some flicker of hope; one of the few good things about returning to the UK.

I relieved Darren from his shift at 8am and packed Ella off to Clovelly to meet up with Lucy and Imogen, who were running late as usual. The beach was almost deserted at half nine, with the exception of a couple of families, one of whom had decked their kids out in Wallabies shirts, patriotic to the end following last night's defeat. As usual though, the Seasalt Cafe on the cliff was doing a roaring trade. I dislike the Seasalt Cafe because it's the only cafe at Clovelly, so they've a captive market that means they can charge what they like. And aside from this, the women who work there are the snottiest bunch you can imagine and everyone else in the Eastern suburbs thinks so too.

Lucy's on her own with Imogen this weekend because Paul's gone to the Bathurst 1000 rally at Mount Panorama, the sort of rally where they race suped-up Porsche 911 Carreras around a circuit. I asked her how he was enjoying it.

"Oh well he phoned last night" she said. "They're staying in a youth hostel to save money but they're regretting it now because they aren't getting any sleep. We're too old for youth hostels, I told him that and now he believes me"

"He'll be more knackered than us" I laughed

"Yeah, though the alcohol restrictions weren't as bad as he thought they'd be. They were saying on the telly that the authorities had really cracked down this year and people weren't happy. Turns out the allowance is one slab per person per day. That's twenty four cans of beer each. Apparently the race-goers often hire trailers to bring their beer, so it's a drastic reduction, but even so, that's more that Paul drinks in a week. These Aussies can't half shift some beer".