It’s happened again. Winter is always coming, but when it arrives, we’re aghast. Photo: Michelle Kroll.
Welcome to the last week of shortening days. By this time next week, the sun will rise earlier and set later as we journey back to the light.
The increasing daylight is the good news. But it is likely to get colder, although last week it seemed like July had leapfrogged June to turn the national capital into Narnia.
Even the electric trolley came to a frozen stop in the frigid fog, delighting climate sceptics who mocked global warming and the ACT’s virtue signalling, net-zero decarbonisation, leading us back to the cave.
It was so cold that morning that zombie ice on the overhead lines could not be cleared. Who would have thought it, the amateur meteorologist and public transport expert in everyone railed when the terrible news came through that light rail services had crashed.
The horror happened so quickly that Transport Canberra staff could not keep up on social media, leaving commuters stranded and aghast, at least until they could be loaded onto a bus or the tram fired up again.
How could this happen, they tapped into their phones, not understanding why they couldn’t know everything everywhere all at once.
Wouldn’t happen with a bus, many averred, or a car, nodding knowingly, forgetting frozen windscreens, flat batteries and the perils of black ice.
And it’ll happen again. The cold, the fog, the ice, as if Canberra was the capital of Greenland, not the wide brown land.
Apparently, it happened last year. Did I blink and miss it?
In any case, it was all Andrew Barr’s fault, or Chris Steel’s, or Transport Canberra’s. Anybody’s except Mother Nature.
Next thing you know, it will be the airlines’ or airport’s fault for fog delaying flights and creating grumbling lines at the airport cafes.
But it is cold, and the days short. By 3 pm, the weak sun is disappearing fast, and one has to fight the urge to forage for firewood and hunker down with a bowl of hot soup in front of the stove.
At home, the air con is humming non-stop, mainly because garage doors apparently can’t be installed without gaps, allowing the frigid air to flood the bottom of the townhouse, negating the insulation. Must have another look at that DIY video or get a quote.
How did this happen again?
The question that optimists ask is: Does this early cold snap mean July will have run out of puff and be more benign?
I’m leaning towards a conspiracy. The weather gods knew our strategy was to escape the two coldest weeks of the year by flying north like geese.
Not having that, they said. I’m forecasting a balmy mid-winter spell followed by a vicious cold front the day of our return, and chaos on the tracks.
What can you do?
In the inimitable words of Elsa, let it go.
The cold never bothered me anyway. Much.
