Prickly Heat

It always sounds like someone is desperate for something to say when they bring up the weather as a topic of conversion. But I have to say that after a week of no rain this place has turned into a dry sauna.

With the constant blue sky and the sun now at a point when it is directly overhead it has been unbearable. It is times like this when I wish I was in my cupboard at work, because at least there I would have air-conditioning.

So I was trapped indoors with the fan going flat out, not making it much more pleasant, getting visits from Patches throughout the day. She would pop in through a hole that she has made in my screen door - one day she was inside and desperate to get out so she charged through and ripped open the fly wire on the back screen, so it now complements the existing hole that I inherited on the front door. Once inside Patch would lie supine with that not a care in the world doggie attitude and drift off to doggie dreams.

Then once her black body has sufficiently cooled, she would turn into the lizard dog and head outdoors to lie in the full blast of the baking lamp above and warm her cold blooded body up. Martin (her real owner - I only look after her occasionally) has a theory that she does the lie-in-the-heat trick to kill off any bugs that she may be carrying. Somehow I think that she just likes to heat up.

Anyway the heat was hot enough for me not to get out the hammock. I have a great big Brazilian style hammock that Sue gave me for Christmas last year and which I managed to smuggle over here with the other 40+ kilos of stuff I brought. Unfortunately when it is too hot the thing gets left in its usual storage spot, hanging as a wall covering. If I attempt to use it at these times I would be baked like a foil wrapped potato in an oven.

The hammock does get pulled out and strung up when the temp cools off at the end of the day from about 4 onwards. Then it is great to lie outside, have a cold beer, read my current book and listen to my music waft out from inside. It?s a tough life.


Me and Patches enjoying life

During the middle of the day it is a case of just opening all the louvre windows, sticking on the fan and hoping that a nice cross breeze will blow up.

If only there was a decent beach in Lae, then I would not care so much. I would head down there, take the esky and cool off by jumping into the Bizmarck sea. No beach though and no pools either. When I first made the decision to come to a university I thought it would be a given that they at least would have a pool .. ahh to be so naïve. I should have asked in hindsight. But I guess I still would have come.