The great swap over has occurred

Today - 5/15; 10/21

Sun - 6 / 9; 11/20

Mon- 8 / 10; 7 / 20

Tues - 7 / 9; 11 / 20

These are the days, and the low/high temperatures, in centigrade, for Christchurch, NZ and Gloucester, UK according to my personalised Google homepage.

Yes, it's that time of year - when our autumn is colder than UK's spring. The great swap over has occurred. And the gap is only going to widen until it reverses in November.

It always seems fine that we're in summer when the UK is winter; I have no trouble with that at all. But when it's reversed I feel oddly, and irrationally, hard done by. I don't know why this is. I don't like it too warm, I like the cold and lighting the log burner to be nice and warm. I like trying to learn how to ski. But it's classic 'the grass is greener over there' mentality, and it's not right, at least in two regards:
1. You'd have thought that I'd be used to the seasons now - after all, this is my 4th Kiwi autumn
2. My sin of jealousy in thinking summer equals fun and I'm missing out.

This time of year is always going to be the busy time of year, work wise. Playing is for the summer, now it's not summer much work needs to be done.

How long before snow in August and essay deadlines of students with whom I work seems normal? It might be a long time - speaking to my wise great Aunt Maureen (who came to live in NZ in 1947 and is now clearly a Kiwi through and through having been here most of her life) she says that 'Christmas in the summer just isn't right Tim' - that's despite having had 60 of them here and only 20 Christmases in the winter!

My moping about this might be brought on by some typical Mancunian weather in Lincoln today - all day drizzle. Just horrible. Wish it would really rain/blow/snow/hail or really not rain/blow/snow/hail - like it normally does in Canterbury.

But it doesn't. As Andy, one of my colleagues is fond of saying 'I am not God and this is not my universe.' Which is a great phrase to ponder.