They don't need feed, they need an umbrella ... and an air conditioner.
They don't need feed, they need an umbrella ... and an air conditioner.
So here it is, February, and the heat is on.
Feb and March are traditionally seen by those of more vintage years as the months of perspiration and fruitless searches for the tube of sun block after you'd put it down somewhere.
The past week has been, as they sayin loose meteorological terms, a stinker.
You know it's getting to the slightly extraordinary stage when you see sparrows under the tree with their beaks open, huffing and puffing in a manner more expected from over-heating dogs.
And when the cats wander in and head for a spot on the table because they know it's in line with the air-conditioning vent, it's confirmed.
Ditto, when you hang some washing out on the line in the yard and by the time you get back to the house you realise it's probably time to go and fetch it in again because it has most likely dried.
Now it may be my advancing years but has this heat ingredient changed?
I have been in 30C situations, and more, before but this last week has felt more like 40C.
Late last week I parked the car up a couple of hundred metres from work, and noted that the temperature was at that stage already 24C ... but that was merely clement, rather than sapping.
But in the three or four minutes it took me to wander the path into town I was feeling slightly gluggy.
My head felt as if it was being pressured by unseen giant hands and, yep, the perspiration had arrived to say gidday to Mr Forehead.
I'd never struck that before, and was slightly soothed by hearing someone say later that they'd felt they were wilting in the "strange" heat.
An hour later I felt I had recovered sufficiently from the almost tropical brief morning onslaught and began writing a letter to the Governor General asking if I could nominate the inventor of air conditioning for a Knighthood.
That's when I realised the heat may have dealt my system a blow.
What an absurd thing to do, for I had neglected to add that the inventor of the ceiling fan should also get a gong.
Yep, the temperature had got to me.
Roger Moroney is an award-winning journalist for Hawke's Bay Today and observer of the slightly off-centre.
I rifled through the weather page and discovered that we here on the eastern seaboard were soaking up temperatures which were three degrees higher than those recorded in Rarotonga, Suva and Apia ... and the latter was copping rain.
I noted Berlin and Edinburgh were "enjoying" drizzle and temperatures of 6C, while Paris was relatively balmy at 10C and with only a few showers.
"That's the ticket," I murmured while imagining I was donning a comfy jacket and preparing to venture off to the local magasin de bouteilles ... that's French for bottle store.
I am probably fortunate, in terms of when the winters descend, that I very rarely feel the cold.
But I really feel the heat.
Don't get me wrong, I love the sunshine and blue skies and being able to get dressed in 18 seconds as that's all a pair of old shorts and T-shirt takes to throw on.
It's only when it gets to the extreme level of UV and humidity that I wilt and begin seeking out inventor of the air-conditioning system so I can buy him a cold ale.
The weather bod on telly the other night, in motioning toward the pretty sunshine graphics and temperatures in the 30 range used a term like "and there's no sign of it letting up at this stage" so I climbed up onto the table, shoved the cats aside, and enjoyed the fruits of the labours of the inventor of the air-conditioning system.
However (yes it's time for a "however" to enter this scribing) in five or six months' time I know I shall likely be mournfully glancing at my shorts tucked away in the bottom drawer, and the unopened tube of sun block and bemoaning the chill in the air, and ticking off another day on the calendar in the journey toward the season of warmth.
But just clement warmth ... not too sapping.
There's a place for an oven and that's the kitchen.
But my favourite season of autumn is thankfully pretty well upon us.
Must be, the Easter eggs are on sale.
Roger Moroney is an award-winning journalist for Hawke's Bay Today and observer of the slightly off-centre.
