The Boot Is Now On The Other Foot

On December 31st we were in Melbourne and my blog entry headline for that day was "Melbourne Freezes While Caloundra Boils". Today the boot is well and truly on the other foot. Here at Caloundra we are expecting a relatively pleasant 30 degrees while in Melbourne they are expecting another 43 degrees to follow on from yesterday's maximum 43.6 degrees (110+ degrees in Texas!). They are expecting 40+ degree days also for the next two days! This photo is from a Melbourne online newspaper, The Herald Sun. Read more about the current conditions in Melbourne here.

Evaporative cooling is the most common means of cooling a home down there and this usually keeps the temperature up to 10 degrees cooler than outside (18 degrees Fahrenheit). So if it is 43 outside, it is 33 (91F) inside! However several really hot days in a row makes the 10 degrees difference unachievable. Units such as the one here are placed on the house roof and direct cool air to all rooms and they only work in areas of Australia which have low humidity.

While we complain about how hot it is here, Sweetwater Texas had sleet overnight last night and awoke to temperatures of -10 degrees. I think there are some people who would swap with you Lou Ann!

Since my last post I have done a bottling. The photo shows 1 teaspoon of sugar being added to each bottle before being filled. This sugar completes the fermentation and gives the beer it fizz and head. Trish did a half day at the Tourist Info Centre as a volunteer. Then on Wednesday she went to Stitchery. She has her Quilting session tomorrow and I have Computer Club on Saturday. In between it is watching the cricket or tennis on TV or grabbing a swim in the pool! My computer gets some time devoted to it too.

As with many older people we have quite a collection of slide photographs. We lashed out and bought a small slide scanner which converts slides into digital pictures on your computer. The coloring isn't always that good and as these slides are now over 30 years old they are beginning to fade anyway. It turns out a good quality slide copies well to the PC, a poor slide (too dark, color faded) doesn't copy well. This is a scene from Telok Bahang (a fishing village) when we lived in Penang 30 years ago!