Oookay, so now I’ve done the blogger equivalent to walking out of the toilet with my skirt tucked into the back of my pantyhose…

It is stinking hot here. About 30 degrees, and it’s 10pm. Been ages since I can last remember a night that was so hot that I wasn’t able to sleep. (And I’ll be realistic, I’ll sleep tonight. I can sleep through anything.) When I was a kid I managed to sleep through a stolen car being set on fire in the reserve behind our house, as well as the fire truck and police that turned up. I did not hear a thing. That explains the necessity of at least two alarms by my bed. Even two struggle to rouse me from my deep (and no doubt noisy) slumber.

I’ve always been a night owl. I think initially it was my way of guarding the house when my mother was doing evening shifts. I like houses that have their own sounds, settling, groaning, creaking. And that house, with it’s flat cyclone roof, groaned with it’s own familiar voice, while the possums played heavy-footed tag on the roof. From tree to window to roof to window to tree… right next to my bed.

I can close my eyes and be back to lying on that bed, feel the soft slightly knobbly feeling of the blue bedspread under me as I lie on top, too hot to get under the covers. The breeze lightly shifting the curtains next to me, the moonlight shining brightly through the leaves. Their rustling. Our dog, Sam, pottering about doing his own rounds of the house, his collar making a gentle tinking sound. And the occassional ‘creeeeak craACK’ as the house cooled down from the hot summer day.

All it needs now is a small southerly buster to break the heat. That sound of heavy drops on the dusty ground. That smell. Hot rain on bitumen. Gee I love a storm.