Heatwave Hell in Melbourne - And Afterwards

Pic: Koshy Koshy

Last week, Melbourne endured four days of temperatures over 40 degrees Celsius, including three days over 42, and two days at virtually 44 degrees.

Adelaide fared even worse: 42.1 on Monday, 45.1 on Tuesday, 43.7 on Wednesday and 44.2 on the Thursday. On that day Roseworthy, north of Adelaide, was the hottest place in South Australia, with the maximum temperature reaching 46.4.

I wasn’t expecting to write a blog entry primly entitled ‘How I felt after the heat wave’, especially as I’ve just had a whinge about the difficulties of being green and anxious. But then a couple of friends talked about being depressed and tired once the weather had changed so I decided to make a few speculations about it.

It was a week when things got a bit too sci-fi for my liking. The level of heat was something I felt I hadn’t experienced before, but apparently things got this bad back in February 2009, culminating in Black Saturday, when the temperature reached 46.4 in Melbourne. (As you can see these extremes are turning me into a climate nerd!)

It seems there is something we lack when we think and talk about temperature. We don’t have the words to describe the spiritual and emotional effects of extended heat. We know that the very young and the elderly die in heatwaves, as do numerous small animals – bats, possums, birds – and in the worst hours we fancy we experience something of what they must have gone through, but we can’t possibly.

Nor are we able, as a society, to communally memorialise the heat. We commemorate the bushfires of course, and the terrible loss of life and home, as we should. But somehow the communal bruising of extended extreme weather doesn’t get memorialised.

Perhaps we should have some kind of public art work that can be added to over the years, recording the highest temperatures for each summer with accompanying statistics and stories. Some of those stories would be funny but some of them would be tragic – losing grandparents and young babies to heat stroke for example. More than double the number of people died of the heat in the week before Black Saturday (374) than died in the fires (173).

Maybe the lack of a vocabulary for this type of stress is why some people try to go on as if nothing has changed – there were still joggers on my street early in the the mornings of the hottest days. Routines are comforting touchstones in uncertain times, but it's important to adapt and bend. A friend of mine rode his bike to the local shopping centre for breakfast, but he rode slowly, and found it less tiring than walking would have been.  

Suffering the heat

With extreme heat and cold, it’s not, in a first world country, just about the temperature. It’s what battling the temperature, and the practical effects of the extreme weather, takes out of you physically and emotionally.

If your body is overheated for a long period of time, it’s a low-key, extended suffering. It’s exhausting in a way that is difficult to describe. I imagine that battling with extreme cold has similarly debilitating effects.

But why the mental effects, the lingering ennui and depression? Although there is a robust public discussion about the heat, with plenty of warnings and advice about how to cope with it, there is no advice on how to cope with the fears it engenders. Perhaps being very hot for a long period provokes ancient, preverbal terrors. There’s also the strange sense of anticlimax that we experience when the temperature drops suddenly, and we are expected to go back to normal straight away.

Yet it’s fundamentally wrong for the body to be this overheated and it feels that way. It took me three days to get over the physical effects of the heat. In those days I paced myself well and got everything done that I needed to. And there were small breaks, too, during the ordeal, like the Wednesday morning at quarter to six when I opened the front door and the morning air was cool and welcoming so I walked a couple of blocks and it was the most beautiful reprieve. To feel alive in the world and able to move freely without being overheated.

But by the last day I’d had it. I escaped the house at about 3, drove myself to Camberwell library, picturing the waiting beanbags, which no one usually uses – imagining myself on one of them. And when I got there, sure enough there were a couple of empty beanbags. On one side of me, a young man had fallen asleep. On the other, a young couple sat close and chatting quietly. An almost full bottle of spring water on the ground beside them. Forgot. The. Water. Damn. At Ashburton library two days earlier, the staff had put out a jug of water and plastic cups – a great idea. Camberwell library hadn’t done that so the utter joy of the beanbag was marred a bit by thirst, but it was manageable.

Anyway, the end of the ordeal was in sight, and came earlier than expected. On the way home from the library the temperature started to drop – by about 10 degrees Celsius in an hour. That was enough to provide immediate relief and then the full cooling came a few hours later.

It was a sobering glimpse into a future dominated by catastrophic climate change. When I was growing up, it was a big deal (and kind of exciting) for the temperature to reach 100 degreees Fahrenheit, which is ‘only’ 37.7 degrees Celsius. A few months ago the Bureau of Meteorology made an announcement – that the climate of Australia had changed, and that there was no point in looking at climate records to forecast the future. I try to imagine what would have happened if those four days had stretched to five, or six, or more.

In the future, will there be a number of days every year when certain places will be simply uninhabitable? I imagine there could be evacuations. Or instead will there be public places set aside with airconditioning for people to huddle in?

When it came to bushfires – which usually get worse when the cold change hits because the winds fan the flames – my state got off lightly. There was no repeat of Black Saturday. This was a huge relief, although in Victoria alone, the Grampians blaze burned for 52,000 hectares, one person was killed, about 4000 sheep lost their lives, and 27 houses and about 60 other buildings were lost. Terrible, but it could have been so much worse.

So – a huge impost on the body and spirit that probably translates into a huge dive in productivity across the state. I feel as if I’ve gone through some ritual ordeal. And yet in twenty years' time I won’t be boasting to my great-nieces and nephews about how I lived through the Great Heatwave of 2014 – what they will have to put up with in future heatwaves will make last week look like a pleasant spring interlude!

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Eco-Anxiety: The Challenge of Being Green and Anxious

Pic: Shehal Joseph

It’s going to be 43 degrees Celsius in Melbourne today – a ‘scorcher’. I’m at my PC, noticing how rapidly my hair is drying and trying to figure out how soon I can dash off to the shops for supplies before the air starts to bake. The milky blue of the morning sky is threatening somehow. It seems like a good time to complete my blog entry on the challenges of having anxiety, or any sort of mental illness, and being eco-friendly or simply aware of the issues, ie climate change.

There is a vague menace in heat waves for me that makes the difficulty in sleeping, especially early on in the heatwave, almost certainly psychological.

It’s not just the magic figure of 43 that is stressing me out today, but the fact that it’s the second day of what will be a five-day heat marathon, with four days of temperatures 39 and above. I picture myself by the end of it a frazzled, dried up twig, mentally scarred for life by my ordeal.

For the fact is once my double brick house starts to cook, if I don’t take adequate cooling measures I quickly go into an odd dissociated state of mind that makes me incapable of taking positive action. The trouble is that this state creeps up on me before I have time to prepare, so I have planned for it this time, and will probably end up in the local library by early afternoon. Later in the week, once the sun has started to set, you might find me wading into the dirty water of Elwood Beach, oblivious to the frenzied chirping and splashing of the crowds who actually think it is FUN to cool down on a hot day and not just grim necessity.

Heatwaves are made more likely by climate change, which leads me to the original topic of this blog entry – it’s not easy being green, and it’s especially not easy if you have any type of mental illness.

I need to acknowledge from the get-go that poor people – and many of us with mental illness are poor – produce very low carbon emissions anyway.

One thing that annoys me about this is that we don’t get social credit for our small carbon footprint. No-one congratulates me on not having replaced my 1997 Starlet with a new car in the last few years but they would probably pat me on the back if I bought a new Prius. Yet I am saving more emissions by not buying a new car, because the emissions involved in producing the Prius would probably be higher than the extra emissions from continuing to drive my little four-cylinder. Similarly, I get no kudos for not having an air conditioner to help me through the heatwave (although I do get plenty of sympathy!) I know someone on disability who doesn’t heat his house in winter, and he’s not earning any awards for Best Green Citizen of the Year. Of course, many of us don’t have cars (that may also be a conscious choice).

But what about voluntary green actions? These often involve extra effort, such as shopping at an organic grocery store that may be further away than the local supermarket. They also require additional planning, eg having enough plastic bags in stock, and remembering to take them with you when you go out. And often (but not always) buying green products is more expensive than the conventional option. As well, with automated checkouts, the anonymity of supermarket shopping can seem so much easier.

If you do have a car, it’s tempting to drive to a social event rather than taking public transport because you don’t have the stress of waiting for the train or tram, or battling your paranoia about the other passengers and any other worries common to anxiety sufferers; then there’s the quick get-away that a car makes possible if the socialising gets too much.

The irony is that people with mental illness can struggle just doing normal things, while conscious green actions require a kind of super-normality.

But being green is also important for many people, whether or not they have mental illness. This is because meaning and purpose are vital to wellbeing, and making an effort to be eco-friendly can provide some relief from the feelings of guilt, fear and anger that the ecological state of the world can ignite.

However, I have no illusions about the limits of said greenness in the scheme of things. In a free market economy where both major parties in Australia are centre right, the idea of doing the right thing – and being viewed by various industries as a niche market for your trouble – can be demoralising rather than empowering. The sense of helplessness this situation engenders can lead to depression, so it’s tempting to ignore the whole issue.

It’s true that nothing I do personally, in my day-to-day practical life, is going to affect climate change significantly. That idea is itself a form of greenwash, brought to you courtesy of the fossil fuel industry and big finance, which between them are investing in enough coal mining and exporting to send the planet to buggery in a few hundred years.

It is also a depressing fact that wholefood stores are generally just as profit focused as the evil supermarkets. It is highly likely that your local organic store is not using green power, for instance, and if it the company is growing, its carbon emissions may actually be increasing.

And buying a green product from a large company that mostly manufactures non-eco-friendly products is tokenistic at best. I bought a diary this year that was carbon neutral, but the company as a whole is anything but, and produces plenty of products that aren’t carbon friendly at all. If you’re going to buy green products, I’d suggest buying them from a company that is trying to do the right thing with all its products, not just one or two that have been created for marketing purposes. The book Greenwash by Guy Pearse has enlightened me on this distinction; it has all the dirt on who’s really doing the right thing in the corporate world, and who’s not.

Yet I don’t see my tokenistic green actions as a complete waste of time, money and energy. I see them as contributing to a more eco-friendly culture – one that will hopefully grow stronger in the long term, and is waiting in the wings for when climate change has become such an emergency that even the most cynical powerbrokers are forced to act.

Also, when I buy from wholefood stores I am at least protecting diversity (Australia has one of the most concentrated supermarket markets in the world, dominated by the duopoly of Woolworths and Coles) and supporting small suppliers. I’m also planning to put my money where my mouth is, by moving my term deposits entirely away from the big banks at the end of the month. This will not only increase my support for local credit unions but it will give me a lovely, revenge-y feeling – I can’t wait to tell the NAB that my money’s no longer going to support their dirty investments.

It’s also the case that being slightly greener can sometimes save money, for example buying from op shops or thrift stores. This retail model is flawed too, I know, because it relies on a certain amount of consumers to buy new products to donate. Yet there is so much good in op shops – the volunteers and what they gain and give, the programs that the profits go to support, and the idea of re-using someone’s discarded junk instead of having it consigned to landfill. A few op shops have been set up to include an element of repair and restoration, and it would be great if this model was adopted more broadly.

Then there’s the wider recycling movement, which is literally redesigning the culture of consumption – fix or repurpose things if possible; if you do create something new, build it to last; and borrow, share and rent rather than buy.

Well, my hair is now dry so I am dashing off to the shops – sadly, it must be admitted, in my car. The irony is that it’s even harder being green during a climate-induced heatwave, especially if you’re heat-phobic. Which leads to my conclusion, that I now take small green actions when I can, while voting for the Greens, the party that wants to take big action. And when I can’t be green because of mental issues or finances, there’s no point in bashing myself up about it.

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A Nest in Spring - My Pigeon Encounter

Recently I wrote about a non-human ‘friend’ I’d made, a blackbird that for about a month was knocking against my bathroom window several times a day. Having anthropomorphised what is apparently a common occurrence (a Google search reveals that during the mating season blackbirds sometimes mistake their reflections in the window for predators, and attack) I felt suitably chastened, and a little miffed when the blackbird abruptly ceased her futile quest, having probably gone off to mate.

The explanation didn’t satisfy me completely though. The blackbird seemed to be trying to get a foothold on the wisteria in order to peer inside – she seemed genuinely curious and would only fly away when she saw me coming. Once or twice I noticed her calmly perched on a high branch of the plum tree outside the window, watching me as I showered. She was fascinated, not merely disturbed, by the world beyond that strange invisible wall she kept knocking into. I wasn’t bird watching – she was human watching.

But I would not be alone for long. Soon after she left, a loving couple moved in next door. Again, they were clearly visible through the bathroom window. They seemed very close, and would sit side by side for hours without a word, torsos touching, enjoying an effortless togetherness. Unlike the blackbird, they were sublimely uninterested in me, although perhaps made uncomfortable by the persistent curiosity.

Then the determined building started. In record time the house was finished and not long after that a new development occurred – the arrival of twins!

Okay, so this new family weren’t human either. They were pigeons and in perfect cooperation and record time they had built a rudimentary nest in the plum tree, only about a foot from the window, that they took turns to sit on, patiently minding two small eggs. The nest is surprisingly small and frail looking. It’s been through a lot in the past few weeks, and, truth be told, is now studded with layers of pigeon pooh, yet it continues to withstand the powerful winds and blinding rain we’ve experienced during what has been a wet and chilly spring. I’ve witnessed one of the adult pigeons perched calmly on it during a windy storm, rocked by the force of the wind but seemingly confident it would withstand the battering.

Seeing the branch swinging and the bird calmly moored there for hours, feathers plumped up against the cruel wind, inevitably made me think about human endeavour (I know, anthropmorphising again!). We all assume that the aim of life is happiness. But perhaps it isn’t. Perhaps at particular stages of our lives it is just to hang in there.

Every time I’d go to the bathroom, except for very early in the morning, one of the pigeons would be sitting on the nest, keeping the eggs warm. You’d think the boredom must have been excruciating, but I’ve come to believe that pigeons either don’t experience boredom, or process it differently (perhaps they also receive some hormonal help).

For a while I had no idea that the male was still involved. I thought the female was heroically going it alone, and that perhaps the male was feeding her. But early one morning I witnessed an exciting event. In an uncanny silence, one pigeon hopped off the nest as the other one waited on a nearby branch. The waiting one climbed onto the nest immediately afterwards and settled in for a long stint.

I’ve seen this a few times now and the sense of cooperation and non-verbal communication is palpable. And at the time it made sense: two distinct personalities had seemed to be in play. One of the pigeons would eye me a bit nervously when I approached the window and shamelessly gawked at it, while the other avoided looking at me altogether, as if hoping I’d disappear.

For about two and a half weeks this pigeon pair took turns to keep their eggs safe and warm. Then one day, tiny moving beaks and long necks stretching up for food were barely discernible over the top of the nest. The chicks had hatched! They were half-formed mutants, skeletal and grotesque in their vulnerability.

The parents did an amazing job hiding the chicks from the world – and me. Not surprisingly, apart from feeding, the aim at this stage was to cover up the chicks and keep them safe and warm – the parent seemed to sit on top of them, and I wondered how it did not inadvertently smother them. The adult pigeon’s ability to spread out and change shape with feather plumping is quite amazing. The phrase ‘taking someone under your wing’ now makes sense to me!

As the chicks grew, the feeding process became more visible. The parent regurgitates food it’s eaten, producing a kind of vomit that it then conveys into the beak of the chick by using its own beak as a feeder. It really gets its beak down the chick’s gullet, and conveys the food using a pumping motion. I watched this many times, feeling fascinated but guilty as I’m sure the parent didn’t like anyone witnessing this act of nurturing. It amazes me that this vigorous process doesn’t damage the chick’s oesophagus! Both seemed constantly famished, pecking at the torso of the parent when the other was being fed but giving up immediately when it was clear the meal was over.

I watched each stage of the chicks’ development with something like delight, and had soon installed a little stool in the bathroom to get a better view of these David Attenborough moments. I continued to feel a bit guilty, worried I was unsettling the parent, but as the chicks grew more sentient I reasoned that they had never known a world without me in it, and indeed they would prove calmer in regards to me than one of the parents.

They grew amazingly quickly, and were noticeably larger every day. Gradually I no longer had to stand on the stool to get a good view of them, and instead of being in the nest they sat on top of it.

As they grew, the parents stayed away more and more frequently, seeming to desert them entirely during the day but always coming back to feed them in the evening (and probably in the morning, before I was up). For as long as possible the parent on duty even managed to fit on top of them in the nest at night. The two siblings seemed increasingly calm in the absence of the parent, as if confident it would return. But they also seemed to know instinctively that it was important to keep still and hide themselves from predators while their protector was gone.

For a few weeks, their main goal in life was to wait – wait for the parent to arrive with the food, wait to grow bigger, wait for that first chance to pound those impatient, unwieldy wings against the wind. They endured the long hours alone with each other surprisingly calmly. Now, when they stood up to be fed, they revealed their bulk - huge when compared with a few weeks earlier and looking like small ducks, with plenty of down, but narrow necks. Together in the nest from the get-go, they somehow continued to fit themselves in and share the increasingly inadequate space, turning when necessary, flapping a wing every now and again, and occasionally gnawing at their own necks, perhaps in hunger or boredom, perhaps shedding down.

New stages continued to occur. One morning when I checked in, one of them had ventured forth from the nest and was perched on a nearby branch. This one was more adventurous and perhaps more developed than its sibling, and it continued to explore further up the tree. I watched enthralled as it made a tiny experimental flight from one branch to the next. The next day, both were perching and moving around on nearby branches.

I was fully expecting to witness the day-shift parent come back to give them a flying lesson. What would happen at this next stage? Would the family stay anchored to the nest at night? Would I witness the young pigeons take a full flight into the air for the first time? Unfortunately, my hopes of seeing further developmental triumphs were disappointed.

Some time after their sally forth earlier that morning, I discovered them sitting companionably together in the nest, looking diminutive, peaceful and sweet. I gave them my usual greeting (I can’t confess it, it’s too embarrassing).

Then an hour or so later I went by again, and they were gone. Just like that. No sign of them in any part of the tree. No goodbyes, not even a ceremonial escorting of them into the big wide world by the parent. They’d just disappeared.

I was shocked, bereft. The nest looked obsolete, forlorn. I sensed its purpose was complete.

It wasn’t the total end, although close enough. That evening I saw the shapes of young birds – for they’d become birds by this stage – in the spangling evening leaves. I rushed outside. Relief! The two young were sitting next to each other on a branch in easy sight, and Mum or Dad, still large in comparison, was keeping watch from a branch further up. I gazed up at the two young and they gazed down at me serenely – that silly gawking monster again. It was the parent, funnily enough, who took fright and flew away. Since then, I’ve only had one more sighting, when I was just able to discern the parent feeding one of them in a part of the tree near the neighbour’s fence. It appeared for a while that the plum tree was still the ‘home tree’, although a few days later I’m not so sure. But the nest has been well and truly forgotten by everyone except me.

Nature makes life look so simple. Pigeons don’t seem particularly enterprising to me compared with some other bird species, perhaps partly because of their environment, but it strikes me they’re the hippies of the natural world. They do whatever is required to sustain existence, and live peacefully in the moment. They also seem to really enjoy simply hanging out with their kids and partners, and on sunny days they soak up the sun, sometimes with a close friend beside them to enjoy the moment with.

Like other birds they seem able to call on extraordinary reserves of stamina and endurance when required. Seeing the parent and even the chicks getting sodden in the bitter spring storms, yet never complain or give up, made me think of the documentary Travelling Birds – I’ve never forgotten the look of preternatural determination and concentration revealed by the amazing close-ups of migratory birds, their wings beating the air as they travelled hundreds of miles without a rest.

Ah well. The plum tree’s branches are now so extensive it’s threatening to wrap around the house and trap me in there. With its main tenants now gone, and its job of protecting one small family completed, it’s time for some judicious pruning.

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Australian media fiddles while Pakistan drowns

Australia is still awaiting the final results of our recent federal elections, which resulted in a hung parliament, the first time this has happened since the Second World War.

We were on the eve of the election campaign when news of the devastating floods in Pakistan gripped the world. The inability of the Australian media to sufficiently highlight the horror of the floods, huger than the 2004 tsunami and the Haitian earthquake combined, was appalling. I’m no news junkie but wherever I watched or listened, rarely if ever did a story about the floods headline a news bulletin, although it usually featured somewhere.

The numbers were difficult to comprehend: initially 14 million said to be displaced, with that number now at 20 million, almost the population of Australia.

This disaster is the future writ large, the massive effects of global warming evident in our lifetimes. It’s not just a matter of short-term relief: the entire infrastructure of the country will have to be rebuilt. Given the unprecedented scale of the tragedy, a national fundraising campaign should have been ubiquitous on all Australian media from day one, but this wasn’t the case.

Instead, an increasingly irrelevant media bored a population pissed off with the governing ALP for knifing a first-term PM and disgusted with the inability of the major parties to produce policies aimed at anyone but the most ignorant swinging voters. The result has been a hung parliament with independents demanding parliamentary and other reforms.

It was both heartening and sickening when, the election safely over, the ABC finally got around to holding a radiothon for Pakistani flood victims in conjunction with UNICEF's fundraising appeal – how many more lives could have been saved if they’d held it right from the start?

The response was overwhelming. UNICEF was hoping for $1 million, but in seeming record time $3 million had been raised. It appeared that Australians had been unsure of how to respond to the disaster and were just waiting for some guidance. Better late than never, but this enormous tragedy hasn’t magically disappeared – sustained and relentless media attention is still needed.

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Cold House Blues

The weather has been on the turn in Melbourne. Summer promised to last forever, but we’ve been plunged into overcast days and freezing nights. As soon as autumn arrives, my home resembles an Antarctic station where the heating has broken down.

Although it’s double brick, which means you have a few days grace before any violent temperature change registers, once it does you’re at its mercy.

This house has everything set up for shivering, in particular large-ish rooms, glass-and-timber double doors in the loungeroom, high ceilings and not a scrap of insulation.

Sometimes it’s actually warmer outside the house than in.

The one consolation is the gas heater in the lounge. It’s fairly ancient, but it does do an initial heat-up of the loungeroom pretty well, even though I know that once July strikes it just won’t win the battle against the cold, no matter how loud and determined its rattle becomes.

I had to really persuade myself to turn the loungeroom heater on this early in autumn. The weather bureau was promising a few 25-degree days towards the end of the week, so it seemed indulgent.

As soon as the heater goes on, the wet clothes come in. During the winter my loungeroom loses its ambience and becomes a de facto clothes dryer. I have a large selection of clothes airers of various sizes that become a fixture in the lounge.

I have a large electric heater for my office, but I’m just not ready to turn that on yet; here, my green instincts line up perfectly with my stinginess and my relative poverty. The heater is a 2400 watt-er, and it also heats the space up well, but in April? I’ll shiver for another couple of weeks, thanks very much.

But heaters on or off, the whole house is cold, and the cold is an alien presence, an enemy that is forever chasing me. The only way to beat the cold is to literally run away from it. I must keep moving, keep thinking about what I’m doing, what I’m planning to do next, refuse to give in to it.

This is the part of winter I find most challenging – I have to summon up a new sense of discipline and a proactive approach while my body just wants to hibernate. Don’t stay too long in the shower; don’t lounge on the floor in front of the heater when there are things you need to do; don’t tackle the dishes too late in the evening because the kitchen will be freezing; move the clothes around to ensure they’re drying. Keep your plan for the day in mind.

This sounds so simple, but yesterday, when cold and looming clouds descended suddenly (it’s warmed up a bit today) I was at a loss. Work was scarce, I felt low and really needed to get out of the house. But I couldn’t bring myself to. The weather felt oppressive, and I felt trapped and unprepared for it.

Recently I found myself thinking about buying myself one of those wearable blankets, for telly watching at least. They may not be exactly flattering but at least they’re comfortable. I looked at a website selling these (I’m not going to provide the link – they don’t need me to help their advertising!) and they are similar in shape to a monk’s robe, giving the wearer a sage-like appearance, while the video ad would have you believe that keeping warm by simply wearing several layers of clothes was never an option – which is pretty much what I’m doing.

One glance at those things suggests that they’d be dead easy to make, even with an existing blanket – in fact one made from a wool blanket would probably be warmer. I’ve also seen TV advertisements for quilted pyjamas, a bit like wearable doonas.

But I don’t think a wearable blanket or doona would work for me anyway as it’s simply another layer – they’d have to have an inbuilt electric blanket to get my temperature beyond the icy. What I’d really like is one of those electrical heated throw rugs – now you’re talking!

During my search on the net I did find something that offered low-tech artificial warmth that’s wearable – a scarf with a neck section and hand pockets that are filled with rice and flax seed. You heat the scarf in a microwave and wear it around the house. Sounds very comforting but I think you’d also need something for the legs.

But I am one of those people who feel the cold to an extraordinary degree. I sometimes go to the house of a friend to watch a DVD on his big plasma screen. The trouble is he’s just the opposite of me when it comes to temperature, and would often cheerfully strip off to his undies, given half a chance, in a temperature that to me is merely temperate.

We now have the drill under control for all but the warmest nights – he leaves out a mohair rug and a cotton blanket, both of which I drape around me as I settle down to enjoy the movie. I also bring a shawl to drape around my shoulders, and – yes, I’m going to admit it – thick woollen socks! Well, at least it stops us bickering about turning on the gas heater.

Still, while I might complain, I do sleep better in winter, partly because the light does not break through yonder window until much later, so my overzealous pineal gland calms down a bit.

(Note – after a lovely sunny interlude the weather got cold again and I felt compelled to add to this little entry.)

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Weather report

It’s hot in Melbourne. It’s been hot since last Saturday. You suffer, you endure, and then it starts to get to you, not just physically but emotionally. Apart from two days that are expected to be 27 and 28 (but will probably be revised up) it’s going to be hot for another week. Already we've had five consecutive days with temperatures over 32 degrees, rivalling the 1896 record of six consecutive days with temperatures over 30 degrees -- but possibly creating a new record because the 1896 temperatures may not have been over 32 degrees.

Luckily the nights have been cooler. My scientific friend tells me it’s the minimum temperatures you have to watch in a heatwave rather than the maximums. Late yesterday afternoon brought a cool change of sorts; I pottered round the laundry and backyard, handwashing, weeding and guiltily attending to my fast-wilting plants. I opened the windows and doors to let the cool in. Later that night I stepped out the front door and just stood on the porch with my hands stretched out, the feel of cool, breezy air on my skin like water, the wonderful sensation of being too cold.

The internal weather has been just as difficult. A few weeks ago I wrote about a date with a certain Gentleman; now I feel compelled to reveal the outcome. Nothing happened. There – I’ve said it. But in writing it I realise now that I really believed something would.

At the end of our first meeting, standing out the front of the café, I turned away during that horrible split second when you are trying to communicate your general impression and perhaps negotiate a second meeting. I hate this moment and was childishly trying to avoid the uncertainty and embarrassment of it. Afraid to show vulnerability, I didn’t give him my phone number, saying hurriedly something like ‘we can email’. Later I tried to remedy this by sending an email telling him I’d enjoyed meeting him and would like to meet up again. But perhaps the damage was done.

Or perhaps all along I was unconsciously protecting myself from a painful short-term fling that would lead nowhere.

Anyway, he replied to my email and said that he’d be interested in meeting up again, although he sounded pretty low key. I knew he was going overseas; he’d told me early on that he was planning a trip to Johannesburg to visit his ailing mother, and was coming back on 2 November. During those weeks I walked around clutching the thought of him to me, keeping him as a little prize for the future, a pocket of sexual adventure, enjoying the idea of him in absentia. I was pleased that the onus was on him to contact me when he came back: I would find out what he really thought of me.

And magically enough he did – an email appeared in my Inbox on 2 November. But this email was even more low-key and non-committal than the earlier one. He’d just got back, was very tired but thought he’d better drop me a line. Later I would wonder why.

I wrote back effusively, telling him I hadn’t gambled on the Melbourne Cup, that it was deathly quiet because of the four day weekend, and asking him about his trip. What I didn’t do was ask him out on a date. I’d already done that in a way – now it was up to him.

That was over a week ago. Since then – nothing.

Of course, I don’t know why he’s been silent, and probably never will. Perhaps he never liked my pics (he took five days to reply after I sent them before we met) and was just being polite. Perhaps he sensed my underlying pathology at our café meeting and wanted nothing of it. Perhaps he read too much into my instinctive turning away as we farewelled each other outside the café. Or perhaps none of it has anything to do with me; he’d described his mother’s physical and emotional collapse during our chat – who knows what the situation was when he got there?

I’m not heartbroken – how could I be after one meeting? – and not even heartsick. But I’m worried about what this meeting says about me and where I’m at with personal relationships. Perhaps, at the moment, they are just too hard.

If I do decide to venture into that territory again, though, there's one thing I've learned that I'll definitely be bringing to my next dodgy or even not-so-dodgy website date. Don't hesitate, or wait for the right time. There's no time like the present. Strike while the iron is hot, because she who hesitates is lost, and a bird in the hand is worth -- well, you know the rest.

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When 'hottie' is not enough

The seasons don't change gradually in Melbourne, they arrive overnight. We were having a mild autumn; now the chill and solemnity of winter is here even though it’s still April.

Yesterday there was rain. We’re supposed to welcome rain these days and I do. I’ve learned to like the slick shiny look of a wet street and the sloshing sound the tyres make when they hit a puddle. I’ve learned to welcome the sound of rain prongs tapping on the window even though my roof leaks somewhat and it sounds as if rain is coming through the roof and falling on the furniture.

Given climate change and the chaos of Melbourne weather there will still be throwbacks, warm mellow afternoons to be savoured with guilty pleasure. But this is more than a taste of what’s to come for the next few months.

Winter oppresses me. At first I love the change of season as I sleep better because the nights are longer. I compose hymns to my hottie (no, not my hot new lover but my faithful old hot water bottle) and I savour the gas heater.

But when I close my front door I feel more alone in winter, more cut off from the world. Old mistakes and failings bail me up and demand explanations.

There is choosing to live in the past and there are times when the past swamps you like a suffocating blanket. It puts out your fire; it makes you feel cold as ashes.

My limbs feel lonely. I need a sensual workout. At times like this I don't feel like a sufferer of anxiety or depression, just an anonymous magnet without an object, or an object that shuns the magnets that are other people.

So many times I have tested myself and waited for the pay-off. Trouble is I do not hang around for the payoff. I just keep testing myself in superficial ways and saying ‘yes, you’re improving’.

I fear that the structure of my life is set. I fear that I’ll be single forever, that nothing I do will change that fundamental fact. I hope I’m wrong. I hope this is a deluded idea.

Going to the park to walk my sister’s dog Jordan, as I do three times a week, is hard at the moment. I’m still going but I expect less from it. In some ways this is good; when you expect less you’re more in reality, more open to what is really going on for and around you rather than trying to subtly ‘improve on’ the world.

Perhaps one thing I’m learning about the park that is quite painful and difficult is that it’s okay to be needy.

It’s safe to love Jordan, to call him my little pal and to catalogue the subtle ways he has changed me. It’s still not safe to go to the park for a chat because I’m lonely. (I wanted to put ‘a bit’ in front of lonely, as if writing ‘I’m lonely’ was somehow disgraceful.) It’s still easier to see strangers on the oval with unfamiliar dogs rather than people I’ve met before.

I hope this blog post doesn’t sound too self-pitying (although I think it probably does). Writing this kind of thing sooner or later helps me in some way. Life feels bleak, not impossibly bleak, just bleak.

One good thing: two of my sisters rang me, on separate nights, asking for help with computer/internet problems. In both cases I was able to offer wise counsel and useful advice.

Does this mean I’m some sort of computer whizz and I just don’t know it? Or is it simply that my family are so technically incompetent that they make me look good (not meant nastily)?

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Living it up -- I think

On Sunday I went to a 70th birthday celebration for one of my aunties. It was held at Kooyong Tennis Club, where she's a member, in the prosperous Melbourne suburb of Hawthorn. For half a day I was one of the privileged, eating barbecued chicken on a huge balcony with a timber pagoda hung over the long dining table, a pagoda that my sister told me was designed by architectural firm Six Degrees. The balcony overlooked acres of tranquil green tennis courts where prosperous middle-aged folk in their whites practised their serves and competed politely, the courts surrounded by dense parkland that rose up around them and obscured a view of the city centre.

It was one of those sunshin-y summer afternoons that last forever, champagne the colour of pale gold gently hissing in the long frosted glasses, the charcoal-y smells of the meat and the tasteful contrast of the green salads, the tall male cousins squinting and slouching in the sun in their wraparound sunglasses, tailored shirts and structured haircuts but still beer drinkers at heart, the cousins in frilly summer dresses and the aunties in their expensive finery, little girls in smock dresses ganging up and charging down the concrete steps to disappear into the courtside area where they would have to be retrieved for the happy birthday.

I was rich. I am rich. I do love my cousins. The last is not a trivial observation. When you've been clannishly close as children the separations that work, priorities and age differences create can result in giant resentments, simmering bitternesses and feelings of betrayal when you don't get invited to designer weddings for only 70 guests. One of these cousins disappeared to Canada and married a Canadian in a lush lakeside ceremony, and I was convinced I would never see him again. Yet there he was, larrikin-handsome, tall and laidback, with his old hugely pleased, welcoming grin. 'I've been married off!' he said. He shared some of his pains and worries and told us that he and his wife planned to eventually come back to Australia to live.

Everyone but me – I don't drink – was mildly sloshed by the end of the afternoon. They did not stagger about but their mouths did not work properly and their smiling eyes held a veiled, lackadaisical contentment. I envied them their temporary suspension from reality's hard edges but not their probable hangovers.

I am not rich. The rent is going up again, the second time in less than 18 months. More money for the owners that they won't know what to do with (they own the place outright and at least two other properties); less money for me to buy necessities. If there's logic in there I can't find it.

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