Fire and Ice

One thing people notice about living in Canberra is the weather, which varies a lot between seasons. Summer days are in the mid-thirties (celsius for you foreigners) and scorchingly dry, winter nights are below zero and frosty. Sometimes Canberra weather changes seem to happen at vastly inappropriate times. For example it very rarely snows in Canberra (less than half a dozen times that I can remember, although since I am only 26 that is not all that impressive), but when it does it sometimes does so at a really weird time of year, like October (spring).

Anyway, I had some photos developed the other day. The film had been in the camera for a while, which can often lead to some interesting surprises. In this case, I was struck by the contrast between two photos taken at exactly the same place - from the front door of my house.

This photo was taken on 18 January, the day fires destroyed a large part of the city. Although my house was far removed from any danger, ash and burnt leaves were falling on the house.

This photo was taken on 14 March. A sudden heavy hailstorm left ice piled on the ground like snow, papered my car in tiny bits of leaf, and left water several inches deep on my front doorstep.

I don't think I could live somewhere with predictable weather patterns - it would be really boring.