Summer lovin'.

Well, never thought I'd find myself saying this but, thanks summer, you've been awesome!

As a red-haired, pale-eyed, pasty sort of a fellow with an aversion to sweat, I'm not very fond of summer. By the end of February I'll normally yell, "Good riddance and don't let the falling leaves of autumn hit you on the way out."

But this year, things were a little different:


Only three days above 35 degrees, hours per day of direct sunlight well short of the average, and the wettest Victorian summer on record... well, I'm going to go on record myself and say this has been the greatest summer of my life!

I honestly feel blessed to have lived through the "summer that wasn't" of 2010-11. Summer of '69, you say? Remind me what that was all about? Buying a guitar and playing in a band that didn't get anywhere? Err, ok. Was that it? Well, each to their own, I guess, but if we're ranking summers, then one with over 300 millimetres of rain sounds hard to beat to me. :)


It's like the universe finally sat up and paid attention to all my years of moaning. "Come here, squeaky wheel," it said. "How does 14 more days of rain than normal sound?" Sounds pretty great, summer. Thanks! Got to say, I like the new you. Keep this behaviour up and you'll be welcome back in my hemisphere any time.


UPDATE
Pool old Gerry Harvey's doing it tough. First the Internet came along sticking the boots into his business, and now nature's conspiring against him too!

"The executive chairman of retailer Harvey Norman, Gerry Harvey, said Victorian sales of airconditioners were 30 per cent down on last year and fans and evaporative coolers had also sold poorly. "It was a very bad season for airconditioners,'' said Mr Harvey. "It would go down as one of the very bad years."

UPDATE 2
Winter said to me tonight, "Dad, I don't like summer. It's as hot as lava." Proud.