Stupid Weather...

Maybe today was a bit of payback for yesterday's blog entry. We've been enjoying quite the streak of beautiful weather, and this morning dawned as no exception to that rule. By 9am it was 27C and brilliantly sunny. Jen and I had agreed that we'd leave the house by noon and head to the beach; in the meantime, she caught up with her friends at home via computer chat, and I split my time between doing laundry and answering emails.

By noon, the sky had clouded over somewhat, but we were bound and determined to go to the beach. We had two stops to make first. We needed to go back to a Turkish store we'd visited at the beginning of the week to get another top for Jen. She's been teaching a lot at a private Islamic school and needs to wear shirts with long sleeves - which is becoming challenging as the weather heats up. Well, by the time we'd left that shop, shirt in hand, these big, fat raindrops had started to fall.

Our next stop was the chemist's shop (pharmacy), so I could get some fingertip bandaids to protect this stupid cut of mine, and so Jen could pick up some latex-free gloves for her first aid kit. (Yep, even here in OZ, first aid situations seem to follow her around like a black cloud - she's been to several schools where her mini first aid kit has been better-stocked than the school's kit!) When we turned to leave the pharmacy, we saw to our horror that it was POURING rain - and we'd left laundry out on the line in the backyard! So we decided to head back home and deal with that.

Of course, by the time we got home, it had stopped raining. No sun yet, but at least no more rain. We decided we'd just leave the laundry on the line; it'd dry eventually. But now the weather had turned markedly colder and we were no longer sure if going to the beach would be a good idea. So instead we puttered around inside for a bit longer, then headed out to the grocery store and fruit market.

I would like to point out that as we were walking down Sydney road towards the grocery store, the sun came out in full force and the temperature was back up near 30C! I mean, seriously, what's with the weather here? When we were on our way home again after the shopping, more rain clouds had rolled in and it was raining on us. Again.

So we never did get to the beach today. I guess we're going to have to just learn to live with Melbourne's finicky weather. There are lots of jokes here about Melbourne experiencing four weather systems in a day and it's so true! I must admit I was more than a little annoyed by the end of the afternoon - we could've likely gone to the beach anyhow and had a passably good day, but we chickened out because of a few rain drops. Now, in our defense, we've also experienced days here where the weather's turned cold and nasty with no warning whatsoever. It would have really sucked to be on the beach and have the temperature drop 10 degrees in five minutes. Don't laugh - it happens here!

I know, I know... so much sympathy from all my North American readers, that the hardest thing I had to deal with today was making the decision whether or not to go to the beach. Life is rough. :-)