Fremantlebiz - Paul's Letter from Australia

Hi-jinks in Aussie suburbia on a Saturday night

The local forecast has been for thunderstorms, but the weather boffins seem to have missed out again. No sign of any upper air disturbances yet. It was definitely a hot and sultry night, but punctuated only by the occasional whimperings of our new pup.

Milly did some more swimming yesterday, but we had to be careful she didn't burn her paws on the brick paving surrounding our swimming pool. Well, we all had to be careful we didn't burn our own paws too, it was such a hot day.

I had a dip last night just before I went to bed. The water temperature was distinctly warm - like boarding-house soup. We have a thermal blanket on the pool to restrict evaporation. It works very well. It also traps heat and so the water warms up, compounding with each hot day. I guess its demostrating a mini greenhouse effect. Eventually the water gets so warm after three or four hot days that its more refreshing to climb out of the pool than get in. The weather boffins are still forecasting thunderstorms through until Tuesday, so we might have some atmospheric relief yet.

We had a pretty American visitor call in yesterday, a 16 year old exchange student from New York. She's being hosted by my number four plumber son and his companion, who is a high school teacher at Wagin.

The student left New York when the temperatures were below freezing, but she seemed to have adjusted to the change. Her parents had equipped her with a new Apple laptop to bring on her adventure. An airline hostess managed to spill a cup of coffee on it during the flight. Apparently it's still working.

I showed the visitor around the garden. She'd never seen grapes growing on a vine before, nor apparently live hens that laid real eggs. Of course the new puppy was pretty popular.

We all went to a barbecue tea last night organised by the parents of the teacher. It jointly commemorated her birthday and the arrival of the American guest. There was a lot of kidding about Australia and how the visitor would have to be careful not to be attacked by kangaroos, emus and the fictitious 'drop bears.' I'm pretty sure she realised she was being kidded, but you can never be sure with Americans.

Our family contributed bread rolls, soft drinks, ice, and a warm Portuguese style potato 'salad' with a covering of tomato and piri-piri sauce to the occasion. The hosts provided the meat - grilled steak, beautifully tender, grilled marinated chicken breast and sausages, plus some other delicious offerings on the salad bar. Platters of chilled watermelon and fresh pineapple were especially welcome treats on such a warm evening.

The host had a gleaming new stainless steel barbecue, seemingly equipped with all the bells and whistles. It was so flash that I wouldn't be surprised if it had an afterburner and a pair of wings folded up somewhere. The heat emitted was ferocious - a global warmer for sure. I was worried that the host was going to actually cook himself. However he survived the baptism of fire and cooked everything to perfection. Next time he might acquire one of those reflective suits and gold-coated face shields that firefighters wear.

I've put online a picture of my own plateful of food. Yep, I ate it all and went back later for seconds on the fruit. Naturally there was pavlova to finish off. I meant to ask the American visitor about her knowledge of Pavlova, which is reputed to have been invented in Perth, but New Zealanders think otherwise. I know she'd never heard of passion fruit, because I'd earlier showed her the vine at our house.

There's another picture of Milly the pup online too. She's showing that she's just a dog at heart when it comes to sniffing inside an old sneaker. The trouble with this cuteness was that I was ready to hit the sack at the time.

© MMVIII Paul R. Weaver.

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Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally. An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write at least couple of million words. Zzzzzzzz!