Winterior

I was going to be going to Geelong today, to the 'Impressions of Geelong' exhibition. Until I woke up, that is, to bitter winds, recurrent rain and chill.

We've had our mildest July on record, I believe, so I've been getting out there defrosting in the sunlight. And wacko! I've got alot more done in the winter garden than usual ( bent down on frozen knees, cowering in gales, teeth gritted, etc, etc ). Above are some of the remains of a massive Hakea that dropped silently to the ground one night recently in the front garden.

So it's a domestic day instead. That's been good, because I've been able to clear out my fridge and make a thick slurry of a winter soup. I'd been thinking it was good to be getting out every day, but no way is this little winter bunnykins and his preferred canine accomplice going to do other than hibernate.

The African stool and the Chinese bowl were given to me by my brother. The Dusty Miller flowers came from the garden a year or two back and still prove useful.

You're getting bits out of my kitchen now. When there's no garden to go out into, there's always the garden within.

It may not always be known in the northern hemisphere that alot of what blooms and grows in the southern hemisphere can do so in the colder months. We are upside-down, of course.

Here's that Dusty Miller again, in my kitchen. Melbourne's winter can be bleak, for sure, but it's not the wipe-out it is up in the northern half of the world.

What is a blizzard? That's a big, overwhelming thing that happens in books. Soup cooked, my windows open to keep the air fresh with gusts of cold air, there's a sort of relief to be away from the absurdly hot days we'll get later on, when the heat hits like a thousand fists, Mr Bond...

The sky outside is white, bleached of fire. Trees swagger in the wind. Nothing could induce me or the Young Miss Zara McWoof to go out there -

- much better it is to be screened, sequestered, holed up, observing outer reality rather than participating in it...

...for there's a silver lining in every gale, on every storm-front, pitted as we are against hyper-reality. If you'll toss me a piece of toast, Zara, I'll go and get your slippers...