Hot in the suburbs

It is so dry here; thirty degrees at nine p.m. and the lawns along the street all stubble and straw. This is in contrast to the inner western suburbs, where underground, overground, wandering streams and old shade trees mean that a greener aspect prevails. I am on kitty watch while Bryndwr-dwelling friends of mine are away on holiday, and spent much of the first of my scheduled visits this evening wandering about the garden, admiring the remaining green.

I have to remind myself that I’ve electively spent the last couple of years getting my shade trees cut down, in order that my L-shaped garden get some winter light. The summer flipside is dry, still heat, even with all doors and windows open.

Not too long ago, harvestmother uncovered in her local history researches records to the effect that the harvestparents’ house is built in a dry riverbed, which would explain both the many rocks and the rapid draining soil of this neighbourhood. On evenings like this I feel as if we are standing in the dry ghost of all that absent water. The air seems to suck the moisture from everything.

But I don’t mind, I don’t mind, since it’s my preferred kind of heat to those sub-tropical humid breezes and heavy, moist air that curled my hair and lengthened even short journeys when I was on foot in Hong Kong, and made the Kyoto bus system such a challenge for a broad-bodied foreigner. Neither the good señor nor I like humidity, which is ever the challenge in my enthusiasm for Asia. His line in the sand is clearly drawn: a few days in Hong Kong, perhaps, but if I return to Japan, I tour alone.

These few weeks, I think, are summer’s highest point in my part of the city. It’s the time at which you can’t really remember what winter felt like—my black greatcoat hanging on the back of the laundry door seems like a visitor from another hemisphere—nor do I ever want to give up these evenings spent in the languorous southern twilight, bright enough to read by at this time of night, even three weeks past the solstice. (Queensland, my first international destination fourteen years ago, was a shock: rapid sunset and then dark, just when the evening was getting started.)

This is also a good time of year to be a Norwich Terrier, assuming of course that one is free of heavy dead topcoat, as my dogs fortuitously are (a blown coat happens every seven months or more, so isn’t simultaneous with the seasons). They potter outside with sticks and inside with toys, sit on the stairs, the porch and couches, ventilating their upper and nether regions alike. This evening’s visit to my absent friends’ cat reminded me once more of the difference between cats and dogs, the way the former in the heat and the day conserve their energy, coiling it in as if building a spring, while the latter tear about in the hours leading up to the heat of the day, the better to recline, panting and sparkling, until their doggy batteries have recharged. I love cats, but am glad indeed in my pack o’ dogs, as I am in this southern summer.

Tagged as: cats, dogs, heat, Sockburn, summer