Okay it’s not really winter yet. Winter starts in June. In Canberra though the rules are that heaters should not be turned on until after ANZAC day (25 April) and they should not be used after the Melbourne Cup has run (the first Tuesday of November). There are also some similar rules about basil and tomatoes but they relate mainly to frost.
Out of all the capital cities in Australia, Canberra is the coldest and the driest. For me that makes it the most uncomfortable and frustrating place to live. This week has seen the weather settle into cold. We’ve even had some subzero mornings. I wouldn’t mind the cold if it wasn’t accompanied with the dryness. I have ichthyosis vulgaris, basically dry cracked hairless skin. I’m forever applying moisturiser and my skin feels cracked dry and at least once a day there is a degree of pain.
As a kid growing up in Brisbane I didn’t hang with my school mates or university friends that much. They were mostly well to do people who were a bit too sophisticated for me. I should qualify and say that after I started fourth year university I got into a friendlier group at university and hung out with them a lot more. Anyway my friends were from the neighborhood and we all liked cars. A couple of mates were doing apprenticeships as fitters and turners and another worked as a bank clerk. We liked V8 sedans and station wagons. I was into Mopar and Ford and my friends were into Holdens and makes from the GM stable like Chevrolets. In Brisbane such people were known as Bevans as distinct from Bogans. I’m not going to try to explain what a Bogan is. I think the term is misused and I think it’s used cruelly to describe people who are misunderstood.
The point of mentioning Bevans is that they had a standard winter garb. Jeans and a flanny. That is, a flannelette shirt. My winter avi reflects that.
I’ll write about my car history another time.
For now though I hope this post doesn’t scare anyone and given I’m doing it on an iPad I hope it works okay.
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