The Four Seasons

Antonio Vivaldi wrote a wonderfully descriptive collection of four violin concertos titled "The Four Seasons".
But .... this is not about that beautiful music. Its about the seasons in Australia.

Officially each season begins on the 1st of the month. That being: Winter - June, Spring - September, Summer - December and Autumn - March. Anyone who has lived in Australia will tell you that Mother Nature and her weather patterns do not coincide with the official start of each season. You will find that the weather feels like a season has started well before the official date, or sometimes, even well after that date. Pundits claim that it is global warming or too much methane in the atmosphere caused by the amount of cattle Australia has roaming the grasslands. But when it all comes down to it, I believe that weather systems are cyclic.

I remember when I was a kid going to school in Tassie during winter, the water in the roadside gutters would freeze with the frost and remain frozen for days at a time. The paths leading to and from school also provided an excellent frost covered slipway for us to slide down, which always raised Mum's ire as we often wore our shoes out well before their use-by date!!!

Over the intervening years the weather was much milder in Tasmania and you would rarely see a frost linger more than a few hours, not for days!!! That was until 4 or 5 years ago when the weather changed back to what I remembered and the gutters again froze for days and the kids of today found the same joy as I did in skating along the gutters and down gentle slopes. Oh!!! to be a kid again!!!!

Here in Queensland, I believe that winter has not really started yet. Yes, it is cold, but not every day. Its more like late autumn without the wind. I must admit that it is very cold further south in Victoria and Tasmania. The reports say that they will possibly have the best snow skiing season for many a year. Already they have posted their lowest maximum temperature on record for June. So we can't complain too much. Maybe we are just getting acclimatised to Queensland weather because last winter didn't seem to be as cold here. Still used to Tassie winters I suppose.

Something that is agreed upon world-wide is when the equinox and solstice occurs. The equinox is when there is equal amounts of daylight and darkness in a full day and solstice is when the difference is greatest.
Winter equinox in Australia (read summer for the Northern hemisphere) occurs on the 20th or 21st March, depending on the year. The summer equinox in Australia occurs on 22nd or 23rd September. That is when there are equal amounts of day and night.
The solstice is the opposite. Summer solstice, where we get the longest day and shortest night, occurs in Australia on 21st or 22nd December and the winter solstice where we get the shortest day and longest night occurs on 21st or 22nd June.
Back in medieval times the equinox and solstice were celebrated with pagan rituals, and I believe that in some parts of Britain these rituals are still observed today.
But here in Australia, and especially Tasmania, they mean that certain jobs need to be done in the garden such as fertilising and preparing beds for sowing, pruning and even collecting and saving seeds, so maybe there is even a bit of pagan ritual in that???
Whatever you believe about the weather or how the weather treats your particular part of the world, it is Mother Nature at work providing us mere mortals with the best, but sometimes trying, conditions for us to survive.