Talking about the weather

Wednesday 27 December 2006
9:50 pm

The weather forecast today read: Drizzle turning to rain during the morning then easing to showers in the afternoon. Strong northwesterlies (high 18, low 15).

Notice the three different kinds of rain I experienced, today? Kiwis have as many words for rain as Eskimos have for snow. And there’s a reason for that.

Today there were letters to the editor in the daily paper that complained about the weather. The day we arrived, the front page story was about the weather. When people find out that we’ve just moved here, that this is our first December, they uniformly apologize and talk about lovely Decembers past when summer really began. Everyone is talking about the weather here. It stinks.

That isn’t to say there haven’t been sparkling and beautiful days, but it is to say that we haven’t had so many of those in the nearly three weeks we’ve been here. It’s been more cold and windy and grey than anything else, which is something of a bummer. Today, for example, we woke up to grey skies, which rather rapidly turned to light rain which turned heavier. All the laundry out on the line (here they hang laundry out on the line, and so we do too) got wet and then wetter (which is the wrong direction really). And we stayed inside and baked a cake (in preparation for the one I’ll make for Keith and Marianne’s birthdays on Friday). One tricky thing about living in a new land is the new ingredients. My baked goods taste utterly different, and I needed to make sure that the NZ cake would be edible before actually sending it out into the world for actual people to actually eat (it was, but it isn’t as good—that’ll take some fiddling). During brief breaks in the weather, the three kids (Naomi had a sleepover) raced outside to play for a little while, and then headed back in when the rain would come down again. And then, somehow, tonight, the clouds all cleared away, the sky turned blue, and the winds howled over rough waves in the sea. The children grabbed their Christmas boogie boards and we all headed down the street to enjoy the first sun we’d seen in days. They frolicked in their new wetsuits and boogie boards, in the stiff surf (but in the very shallow water) while Michael and I huddled in fleeces and long pants, me wrapped in the beach towels. Finally, when we could stand it no more, the sun also decided to take a break from looking at the sea. The clouds closed back in, and we all bundled home, the kids to take hot showers and get cuddles before bed.

We’re hoping that eventually we’ll actually someday swim in the waves with the children (hell, I’d be excited if I could wear my shorts—and you can’t imagine how tired I am of the three sweatshirts we brought with us—oh for the boatload of warm clothes chugging slowly towards us on the Pacific…).

The forecast for tomorrow? “Mostly cloudy with showers. Fresh west to northwest winds. High 20, low 15.” Oh well. Summer is nearly here…