Camping (or The Woe of the Unhappy Camper)

The Fremantle Doctor (the wind that blows in across the sea from near Fremantle, so named because it makes you feel better) was away for the past week or two, and the weather was most unpleasant. Last Thursday was particularly appalling, and my delicate flower self got heat sickness (migranes and other details you'd rather be spared). The wind, when we've had one, has been hot and not at all refreshing. We went from eating three meals a day outside to none, from swimming every day to avoiding even the pool because the air was so burning hot. The outback was outside. Yow. It makes you appreciate what England did to her prisoners by dumping them off here so long ago. What a harsh place! Thank goodness, the doctor has returned. The doors and windows are flung open to the refreshing wind, and we can breathe again (and sleep and relax and enjoy...).

Despite the fact that February had one of the coolest starts on record (lovely 70s), the overall summer has been one of the hottest on record. We know we are in trouble this winter, because (at least until last week) we didn't find it all that bad. We didn't even use the air conditioner much. We actually don't like it anymore, and we only turned it on in the hottest evenings to knock the worst out of the house before bed. Of course, if we aren't finding summer too hot, that means we've adjusted to the warm and we're probably going to find winter very cold indeed. The hot weather got a lot of locals moaning about longing for the end of summer. Bring on winter! Bring on the rain! I'm ready to be cold, they said. Not me. But I tell ya, I will look forward to the end of bug season.

Maybe it has been the heat, but we have had ridiculous bug populations this summer. Flies, mosquitos, cockroaches and spiders...they are taking over my sanity. The cockroaches have no shame and skitter boldly around until I make Markus finish them off. Mosquitos dive-bomb my head in the night as I try to sleep. I don't know where they come from, but I can't seem to keep them out of the house. Aussie flies are particularly ballsy and do not respect personal space at all. And then there are the spiders. A couple of weeks ago, I opened the bathroom drawer only to hear (yes, he was solid enough to make a sound!) a white-tail spider plop from the top of the drawer onto my toothpaste tube. White-tails are nasty poisonous. I was most unthrilled. This came a few days after doing in a sizeable redback on our back table (also nasty poisonous). I'm not writing this to put off any potential visitors (the numbers are unusual, mind you), but what I am saying is that I am no longer interested in camping indoors. Too many bugs in my house! Too much HOT in my house! If I want to go camping, I will pick a beautiful remote location in the great outdoors. I do not wish to camp inside.