Brisvegas on Ice

Winter has ascended from the hell where it surely resides.  Semi-tropical Brisbane has been snap-frozen in moment of Melbourne-style coldness, brutal and unrelenting.  “Is this a house or a fridge?” asks Hubby… except it sounds more like “ini  rumah apa kulkas?”  Given that the house was built 40 years ago to cope with temperatures in the mid-30s, it’s not much competition against the cold.  The kids and I shuffle around in the mornings like an assortment of frozen goods: I’m the icecube tray, little dude is frozen vegeburger, and big dude is  frozen peas.

Little dude (2yo) has taken to wearing socks, lots of them.  It’s not uncommon to find him with 3-4 socks on each foot (some of them footless) and several socks on his hands like multi-layered mittens.  He’s slightly obsessed. He searches the house for more and more socks.  He looks in the dirty washing basket, big brother’s sock drawer, he even takes mine off my feet to add to the stash on his own feet.  Once, he got up at 2 a.m. to put on a bunch more socks that were laying discarded on the kitchen floor.  Then he went back to bed. He even managed to eat dinner with footwear on his hands last night.  The odd thing is, he actually made less mess than usual. 

As for me, I’m cranking the heater in the mornings and desperately ushering everyone outside on “important” outings if there’s even the slightest hint of sunshine. It’s almost always warmer outside. I’m also sneezing like crazy… “Ahchooo! Alhamdulillah” (repeat 100 times a day).  I had hoped that incubating a mini-me over winter would protect me from the cold- but I’m still shivering and cursing the weather this year.  Every winter I say “that’s it, we’re moving to Darwin”, yet somehow, I always survive to see spring. And this is Brisbane. I don’t know how families in the southern states survive at all.