First day of winter; partly cloudy with occasional rain.

It's been a pretty cold week here in Armidale! Perhaps only fitting for the winter solstice. July on average is just a little bit colder than June, so we're not in the clear yet--but at least the days will start getting longer again, and we'll be getting more sun on the clothesline in the backyard.  It's really, really nice that we can still line-dry our clothes in the middle of winter.. some days, at least.  Not today: it's another rainy Saturday; cloudy now, but according to the forecast it won't last long and we're due for some more showers.  It seems like since mid-May, every Saturday has been a combination of rainy, cloudy and damp cold.

Courtesy of Wikipedia

It's kind of funny, who would have thought that we'd move to Australia and find our house colder in the morning than it was in Idaho. There is no insulation in the house so when we get up on zero-degree mornings (Celsius (of course, it doesn't get that cold)), it seems to be around 5° in here (41° F).  Though it's hard to tell... our thermometer broke and we haven't bought a replacement.  Missing our kotatsu; wearing layers of coats and hats as usual.  Some things never change.

The zero insulation is turning into a little bit of a problem, though; the main room ceiling is dripping from the condensation in the colder mornings and the mold is beginning to escalate out of control. We'll see if the realtors take care of it for us, otherwise we'll have to buy a ladder.

Courtesy of Weatherzone

Despite being the shortest day of the year, it's really not that bad: as you can see, sunrise is at 6:50am and sunset at 5:00pm.  Latitude-wise, we're the same distance from the equator as Houston, Texas.  Longitude-wise, we're the same distance from the Prime meridian as the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska.  (No one ever says that, do they.)

Anyway, enjoy your summer, you Northern Hemispherers.  We'll think of you during our Christmas in July festivities and our tropical winter vacation in August.

Also, this is completely unrelated, but on Tuesday someone said to me genuinely "Good on you, kid", except of course it sounded more like "G'danya, ked", which I found tremendously endearing.