Winter's end

I keep expecting winter in Canberra to turn into something I'm familiar with--biting cold, howling wind, snow (please?)--and it keeps surprising me. When August began, I couldn't stop thinking about the old adage, "When the days begin to lengthen, then the cold begins to strengthen" and bracing myself for an onslaught of some kind. When one of my friends (originally from balmy Queensland) recently told me that she was all done with winter, I told her I was still waiting for it to start.

The reality is that, instead of my fevered winter imaginings of northern origin, we've had some much-needed rain, some frosty mornings, and some warm, sunny afternoons--sunny enough to encourage preschoolers to take their coats off and flowers to bloom, sometimes where you least expect to see them. I don't know if it's climate change, or just typical. It's pretty different from my expectations, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.