Summer in Durban is glorious, it is hot and sunny and the afternoon thunderstorms are something special, I don't think I ever really appreciated them though, not in the same way I am appreciating this wonderful summer in England.
When the weather is almost always beautiful and the sky is so often blue I think we grow to expect it, to take it for granted and it is only when you spend 12 weeks a year in darkness from 4pm to 7.30am and the mercury seldom peeks it's head above 0 degrees, when grey becomes the normal colour of the sky that you really really appreciate every day of magnificent weather.
Summer arrived here in mid June and today is our 22nd consecutive day of beautiful sunshine - the temperatures have averaged between 26 and 30 degrees and the long evenings are filled with the scent of bbq's. It is def the best since we have been here and it has lifted my heart and spirits to new heights. We all once again have golden tans and both the older children's hair is tinted with the natural highlights that days in sunshine give.
Yesterday Megan and Phillip took themselves down to the village on their bicycles to attend the Summer fayre at Phil's school and I spend the day in my bikini pottering around on my terrace sorting out my "garden". It was such a happy feeling, and I am so not a gardener, but somehow weeding and clearing my lovely lavender and pruning back some of my herbs while gently removing snails from under the pots and watching the bumble bees flit around collecting pollen was just so so satisfying. The Viljoen's joined us for a Mexican dinner served out on this newly sorted terrace in the evening and as we sat laughing and chatting while the sun sank low in the sky it was just a perfect end to a perfect day.
This afternoon we travelled about 40 mins from home to join one of Nicholas's friends family for his second birthday party - again as we all sat around under the trees watching the babies play in the paddling pools the feeling of contentment is very hard to explain - I really can only attribute it to the knowledge that this perfect, wonderful weather is short lived and we are all literally making hay while the sun shines, and I actually quite like it.
Oh how English am I, a whole post on the weather lol
2 comments:
LOL! A whole post on the weather! And what a beautifully written one it was too...spoken straight from the heart. I can see it as the journaling to a layout of you watering your lovely terrace. I can understand how you feel. I find the Durban summers very oppresive, being used to a much milder, drier heat previously, that I savour the cooler autumn days as you do the English sunny ones ;-D
Always so well put! Yes one does really start to appreciate the good weather knowing that it cannot be taken for granted. LOL on you in a bikini on the terrace!
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