Summer in Brisbane

It's cricket season. It's been overcast and rainy for the last couple of months. It's muggy. It's temperatures between 25 and 32C. It's the occasional flash flood -- one of which I had to ford in the Defender.

This summer, I've been perspiring or at a low-level ooze almost the entire time I've been outside. I don't much like hot, muggy nights.

I'm told by the locals this is a proper Brisbane summer, which they haven't had for the past fifteen years.

The rain has been good for the dams, which are now no worse than they were this time last year. Still, 24% of capacity is ridiculously low. They say that if we hadn't had all this rain, we'd be looking at empty reservoirs in about a year. South East Queensland's water situation is precarious. So, like any good Australian, I welcome the rain, but don't much like the gloom. I've been caught outside in the rain many times, once even in a real deluge. The deluge was very uncomfortable and somewhat dangerous, since I was in the outback and there was a thunder storm in the area. The rain during that storm was hard enough to sting my skin. But, slogging through mud puddles and being soaked to the skin are amazing enough all by themselves in the driest continent on earth. At least the rain was warm, and that storm delivered huge amounts of rainwater to the catchments.

I'm looking forward to footy season. I have some season passes to the local Aussie Rules club, the Brisbane Lions. I may just buy some passes to the Rugby League team, the Broncos. I hope to see a couple of professional cricket games in the next month or so, and it turns out our local soccer/football team, the Roar, are doing very well this year. Brisbane (and Australia in general) is amazing in the proliferation of high quality professional sports.