Christmas is well and truly on its way here as can be seen by the lights on the houses and Ian has gone to town as usual. He missed out last year as we only had a caravan to decorate but he has made up for it this time and has plenty of competition among the neighbours, it seems that about every third house has made a bit of an effort with some lights. It is very pleasant to stroll around on a warm evening and look at the displays but seems a bit weird still, I don't think I will ever get used to Christmas in summer, Ian never has.
Apart from anything else it is strange that everyone is about to set off on their summer vacation too as the long school holiday begins next weekend, it is an expensive time of year for Australians because everything happens at once.
We still have not made a decision about whether to swelter over turkey and all the trimmings this year or to chuck a couple of prawns on the barbie, we did the latter last year and it felt very unchristmassy so I think the turkey may win.
Zoe is going to join us on a little camping trip later this month so we will definitely be attempting the full roast then. I am currently on a mission to find Paxo in a supermarket without much success so far, maybe I should set up a business importing it for British ex pats.
It sounds like I am complaining but I am not, the weather is gorgeous here at the moment. It seems to follow a bit of a pattern starting at around 26 degrees for a few days then building up and up until it reaches the late 30s or even 40, then there is a huge thunderstorm at night and we drop back down to 26 again and the whole cycle starts over. The hot days appear to generate the most spectacular sunsets too, ranging from all shades of orange to bright pink.
The wildlife changes as the weather gets hotter and we now have a new resident in our garden, a Dollarbird, so called because there is a white disc pattern on the underside of both wings that looks like a dollar coin and can be seen when he is flying.
This bearded dragon was sunbathing as I walked with Monty today, it made no attempt to move even though we very nearly trod on it and just gave us a dirty look, I don't think they are dangerous but I was a bit unnerved by its confidence.