Rain, rain go away, we don’t need another drop thank you very much. Photo: Kim Treasure.
This time of the year is the best.
Bob Dylan was the first to sing about “the times they are a changin”. He probably wouldn’t still be singing it these 58 years later – scary, I know – had the lyric been “the trees they are a changin”.
Actually many of his fans wish he’d stop singing altogether and just let them remember when he could actually sing, or at least when they could understand his words – but we’re heading off track.
Instead, why not look out the window anywhere and you’ll see the change: from green to just about any other colour, but mostly orange, yellow and red.
The colour change heralds so much more than just trying to find the flannelette pyjamas you hide from yourself every year, vowing never to wear again but always weakening once the temperature reaches single figures. Actually flannelette pyjamas are known to be the pyjama of choice for single figures. It’s often a contest with those nighties made out of so synthetic a fabric that the wearer is forever hot. And not necessarily in a good way.
But the tree change this year has been quite odd. The leaves, like the rest of us, are confused. I mean, a Budget was brought down when the Budget tree at Parliament House wasn’t even in its rightful red maple-ish colour. Clearly, the money was on change.
Our trees are in the midst of changing colour. Photo: Sally Hopman.
But it’s not all been bad. One of the best changes has been the absence of those leaf-blowing monsters that are very loudly trying to put rakes out of business. What has a rake ever done to them apart from a few naughty legalities on the television show?
Have you noticed fewer of them about? Blowers, not rakes. You can always find a rake. Sure, we rarely hear/see them in the paddocks out here, usually someone will shoot them before they even think of a blowout – again, I’m talking blowers, not rakes. But I haven’t even heard them in town. Maybe they’re also seasonally confused. Or, in a perfect world, someone’s pulled the plug on them.
I blame the rain. Every thousand drops of it that have fallen so regularly so recently with such a splash. Weeks after the last dump you can still feel it under-gumboot in the paddock, still giving you that sinking feeling. People are talking about mouldy mould. Discovering holes in the roof where tiles had been for lifetimes of drought.
I remember when rain was a good thing. It was at the height of its popularity when it didn’t fall. We’d dream about it. Play recordings of it into our ears to discover our spiritual selves or drown out the musak in the fast food restaurant – not often at the same time. It would help us waft off to sleep and it would help wake us up. Or at least the drops on the head did the job.
Seems to be a matter of just becoming seasonally adjusted. To what, I’m not quite sure.
Now, where did I hide those flannies?
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