Easter weather

 As we all know, Easter comes in the spring in the northern hemisphere and autumn in the southern.

Of course, autumn is a time of cooling down toward winter, but not this Easter.

Two or three days ago, we had a fire in the wood stove because it was a bit nippy.

Tonight, almost 11PM, we have windows open and fans going and are commenting that it's finally cooling off.

It just started raining, so that should help.

Strange thing, weather.

Some weather observations

This is the first year that we have had a 'real' summer since I've been in NZ. Of course, it's been pretty much a drought all over the country, but I have thoroughly enjoyed the warm weather. It's the first summer I have not worn sweats track pants to bed every night; in fact, I've barely worn them to sleep at all.

Having spent a few days away from this mountain makes me realized that Mt Taranaki has so much to do with our weather, even though those that have been here all their lives disagree. I'm not sure how they explain that the countryside is brown everywhere except here, behind the mountain,  but the internet (and other dependable sources) simply explain how mountains take any sort of moisture and dump it on the other side as rain.

The tibouchina in the back yard garden is still blooming this year, as opposed to just blooming in the spring and summer last year and my begonias are still blooming at full speed. The dahlias are bigger than ever right now with such lovely pink blooms.

We had a little cold snap and I was sure that winter was on the way, but I'm still enjoying the warm as long as it will last. I know the farmers aren't enjoying it, but I sure am.

Everybody talks about the weather....

Even though I live on an island in the South Pacific, it's a bit farther south than the image that comes to mind when you hear the words 'South Pacific'. But that's ok because it's about the same distance from the equator as the state of Kansas, and I found that the weather isn't usually drastic one way or the other except for the fact that that living with a mountain between us and the ocean causes us to have a lot of rain.

But, it was a good surprise to find that most of the weather is very tolerable, even for someone like me, who doesn't like to be cold, cool, or anything but warm at any time. That being said, I still find it a bit chilly at night, every night, even in the summer and I usually turn on my side of the electric blanket for a while each night because I cannot sleep when I'm not warm.

So, you can understand my confusion when, last night, just being well into spring, I was still in shorts with the windows open at 11 o'clock at night and didn't have to turn on any heat at all to sleep until about 5am. I was ecstatic and terribly hopeful. It seems so wonderful and I thought it might be a good sign of the weather turning really, really nice for a change.

Alas, today, we awoke to the normal spring weather, rainy and nippy. But, I'm still hoping that maybe this year's weather will bring me a few more nice, warm surprises.