Spending the summer in Perth quickly dispels any doubts about global climate change: The recent heat wave has been breaking records and this year looks to be heading in the same direction. After surviving the hottest Christmas on record, we have just struggled through the hottest January since records began in the 1950s. With an average daily maximum of 32.8 degrees, 2.5 degrees above the monthly average, January is now a month to be endured rather than enjoyed
Sitting there in rainy windswept England, you’re probably thinking that I’ve got nothing to complain about, that hot weather is fantastic, well it is if you’re on holiday, being pampered in a hotel or lazing on a beach, but the reality of everyday life on a 38 degree day is very different. The lucky ones exist in an artificial world of thermostatically controlled bliss, leaving airconditioned houses to drive in airconditioned cars to airconditioned offices or shopping centres.
The not so lucky have to work outside in the relentless sun, perhaps on a building site, trying to mix cement that is going off before it gets to the trowel or picking up tools that have been left in the sun and can burn the skin off your hand if you forget to wear gloves.
January is also the main school holiday period, the kids are off from Christmas through until the first week in February, when mothers all over the country breath a collective sigh of relief to be packing the little ones of to school once more and not having to be constantly on at them to wear a hat and sunscreen. The office workers too are glad to see the end of school hols as they reclaim the city streets and shopping malls that have been inundated with innumerable teenagers for the past 6 weeks.
There are of course many good things about January, the high point being Australia day on the 26th of the month when we all get a day off work to enjoy a family barbeque and a few drinks to celebrate living in the lucky country. The day culminates with over three hundred thousand of us making the pilgrimage into the city to watch the Skyshow.
Huge crowds gather around the swan river in Perth to be entertained in the evening by aircraft displays and, at 9 o’clock, a million dollars worth of fireworks erupt into the night sky. The event is sponsored by the local radio station and the fireworks are fired from two barges in the river and are timed to match music being played on the radios that everyone carries, an awesome spectacle that last for a full 30 minutes. Then its off to the pub for a couple of hours to give the crowds time to subside before attempting the train journey home.
Perhaps its because we are going through a boom period at the moment but the display of patriotism was tremendous this year with aussie flags hanging out of car windows and girls wearing dresses made from flags and boys wearing tee shirts and hats with flags on. There have been several attempts over the years to change the flag, by people wanting Australia to be a republic, but these attempts are always met with strong resistance. The Aussies, at least for now, still cherish the union jack derived flag and their links to Britain.
The tradition of celebrating the 26th of January as a public holiday is a very recent one starting only in 1994 but its origins go back to the early 1800s when it was referred to as first landing day to commemorate the day in 1788 that Captain Arthur Phillip, commander of the first fleet of eleven convict ships from Great Britain arrived at Sydney Cove.
The Aboriginal community, perhaps understandably, takes a slightly different view of the holiday, referring to it as ‘Invasion day’
So there you have a snapshot of January in Perth. I hope not a grumpy old mans version, just an Englishman indulging in the age old pastime of complaining about the weather. Would I change it? absolutely not, that fact was brought home to me today when it rained for the first time in two months, the first couple of hours in the morning were lovely, the rain freshened everywhere up and of course it was good for the garden. But by lunch time it was still raining and the novelty had worn off and I was thinking OK I’ve had enough rain now, lets have the sunshine back. No pleasing some people.
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