On Deck With Declan

Happy Holidays, Constant Readers.

I’ve lived here for two years (almost) and people keep saying to me: “Boy, have you experienced a summer here yet?”

To which I was invariably answering: “Yeah, I have. But, you know, it gets hot down in Adelaide.” But I think I was lying – a dry 45 degrees in the south, blistering as it may be, is nothing compared with a Whitsunday weather system. The air up here is genuinely thick, and I’m almost certain it’s going to get worse before it gets better.

It’s like you’re miserably swimming in it.

And it’s only come to a head in this past week (as I write this on Tuesday) with a heat wave destined for Cannonvale.

For a majority of the year (although it sort of streams past when you’re in it) the weather is peachy in paradise. Those winter months are positively beautiful.

Everything flows on from one thing to the next, and you forget about those horrid moments months back where you were glued to your chair at home, sitting there in your jocks sweating like you’ve just run a marathon in Dubai.

The winds of winter move every part of you when you’re by the ocean’s edge at dawn. Lilac light paints the early morning, waves smooth the silver, pockmarked sands. You feel easy and free.

Then you come back to summer. The weather’s either close-to-rain or raining. Your air conditioner has a smoker’s cough. But it’s the price you pay for paradise in those middle months.

Like life, you stick with the bad for the good, and the good for the bad. Difficult times make the easy times better; challenge is the spice of life, like variety.

Stick with the hard weather, Whitsundays. All storms – and humidity - pass and make the sun even brighter when it comes from behind the cloud.

Declan

Quote Of The Week:

“There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” ― Leonard Cohen

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