Summer’s lease

The temperature sat around thirty for much of yesterday. The hot weather brings out the community, at least in this small neighbourhood. All windows were open on all houses in my street, and most of my neighbours were visible on their porches, lawns and decks by evening, enjoying the advancing cool.

Señor Mojito and I had made a beer run, which was all the better to host Ashburton Jay when she stopped by on the way to a meeting. The puppies, once they had stopped throwing themselves at her like leaping salmon, were held up for inspection, and she was pleased to admire Eddie’s drive at rear (which is breed jargon for how the back legs should extend when the dog is on the move). We considered pedigrees, breed judging, and the vexed question of when Weedons becomes West Melton, since not even the satellite towns of our acquaintances are exempt from Christchurch’s relentless concerns with which suburb is which. (In the estate agent’s utopia of desirable locations, all of west Christchurch is of course six degrees of Fendalton or Avonhead, while even in the east new names are given to subdivisions to avoid the lower-priced trinity of Aranui, Wainoni and Linwood, historic neighbourhoods all.)

I have a new neighbour in the front flat, who was enjoying a cigarette with her daughter while her little granddaughter played in the garden. My new neighbour’s two cats came out to take the evening air and Arthur, behind the fence, suffered a near apoplexy of rage. How dare they! How? How! Millie rounded the pack up on the porch for auxilliary barking duties. I worried about the volume, which took time to bring down. The price of freedom, it would seem, is eternal vigilance against cats.

My recycling bin this morning is full of empty Summer Ale bottles. There is a temperature above which such beers taste not just good but sublime, just as when it is particularly cold there is nothing to do save drink dark beer.

Tagged as: beer, cats, dogs, hot, Sockburn