Filed under: Uncategorized
Weather is notoriously unpredictable no matter where you are in the world, but I am convinced that mother naturehas the most severe mood swings of all in Central Otago New Zealand. For almost all of the past two months, the sun has been shining brightly and the skies have been the clearest blue imaginable with only a few great big puffy clouds occasionally interrupting the expanse of blue. It has been a very comfortable mid-twenties (or low to mid 70s for those who are celsiously challenged).
And then the rains came over from Melbourne where the hail there did catastrophic damage to people and property. But dont panic, the hail didnt make it all the way over here. We were given freezing rain and temperature lows in the single digits. My beautiful summer oasis of sunshine and warmth was destroyed by this storm that covered the skies with steely grey and black clouds and forced everyone to once again break out the winter wear. The shorts and tank tops were replaced by puffy jackets and jeans and jandals had to make way for trainers and boots.
In the midst of all of the bad weather misery, however, mother nature winked down on me. After having to walk to the bus to go to work and running back and forth to the cars to do damage checks in the freezing rain, when the clouds finally lifted above the height of the Remarks there was a fresh dusting of snow on the peaks. The mountains looked as though someone had sprinkled powdered sugar over them. It was the first snow of the year!