Updated August 2011

Hi, and thanks for visiting.

I'm Pat and I live in Brisbane, Queensland, halfway up the Pacific coast on the right hand side of Australia. One son lives here and works in aged care; other sons live not far away.

Brisbane is subtropical and is, of course, in the Southern Hemisphere. Summer is December, January and February. People who've lived here all their lives talk about the heat a lot in summer, when it can reach the high 30s, Celsius, (high 90s Farenheit).

Winter is June, July and August, and people talk a lot about the cold - it gets down to 20º C some days. Spring and Autumn are in between; practically no weather happens then, so we've not a lot to talk about. November 2008 was an exception; we had a huge storm which blew streets full of houses to bits, and we talk about that sometimes.

Seriously, this is a magic part of the world. From my desk I look out on brilliant blue skies, glossy green leafy trees and scented vines, all sparkling in the sunshine. A wild white sulphur-crested cockatoo perches in a tree, pecking at sunflower seeds in a hanging tray, and in the front garden rainbow lorikeets shriek and warble at one another over the birdbath, while doves and crested pigeons strut about the drive, cooing contentedly. In December the king parrots visit, large vivid green-and-scarlet creatures: Christmas-coloured birds! Possums thunder across the roof at night and the adult males make alarming noises in the breeding season. Geckos chatter and chase moths and lady geckos all over the windows. Crickets and cicadas sing and, when it rains, frogs sing, too. Fruit bats glide, silent in the night, and startle the unwary with sudden social shrieks.

Our dog is a Gordon Setter, now in his third year. The largest of all setters, he has long, silky black hair shining with the effortless gloss that goes with the breed, and golden-chestnut highlights that almost glow in the dark. Gleaming white fangs and an impressive deep bay complete the picture and sound effects. He's a happy dog, revelling in joyous indolence, champion of the local offleash area, the Bark Park. He never starts a fight, but will insist on finishing one and recently refused to be separated from a 70-kilo mastiff which mistakenly thought him a soft target. Our lad emerged unscathed, though well-meaning humans trying to intervene didn't do so well. Now I'm planning a pocketable first-aid kit, just in case. What'll I put in it, do you think? I asked the dog-handler son. A sharp needle and some fine fishing line would be favourite, he suggested. A bird dog born and bred, the large backyard is our Gordon's domain: he stalks cockatoos while the cockatoos just sneer at him, and nothing on earth can sneer like a cockatoo.

There is also a cat, who's lived here since she could fit in a coffee mug; a wisp of grey fluff with huge yellow eyes, who believes she's a tiger. By the time our pup arrived on the scene at ten weeks, Cat, aka Miss Kitty or, more usually, Getoffmydeskyouhorriblemoggy, was bigger than the dog and had no idea what a shock awaited her. He grew and grew, and grew, and now moves her around by the scruff of her neck, at whim. Occasionally he pins her down with one huge hairy paw and delicately licks her ear. I believe she views him as a sort of mentally-deficient fellow cat. She brings him gifts - a quite large snake once, in two pieces, and the occasional mouse, usually in one piece. Also a rat, but we don't speak of that.

Well, that's it for the weather, the wildlife and the domestic creatures. All far more interesting than me. I read a lot, listen to (mainly) classical music, enjoy all good music, love good food and wine, and just generally enjoy a simple life in the sunshine.

Wouldn't change it for anything.
September update:

Spring is sprung,
The sun is riz,
I wonder where the birdies is?

The birdie's on the wing they say
But we know that's absurd.
In Brisbane we can clearly see the wings
Is on the bird.

As Northern Hemisphericals slide inexorably into another winter, here in southeast Queensland we are struggling through our normal springtime hazards of blue skies, golden sunshine, gentle rain once a week, mid-twenties temperatures ... it's a tough life, but we cope. New leaves burst out all over, jasmine and mock-orange perfume the warm breezes, and jacarandas go all purple.

Magpies begin the dawn chorus at five-thirty, the other birds join in, and by six they've all gone about their daily routines. Except for the currawongs, who prefer to wait for the sun to actually make a civilized appearance. On cue at six their glorious tuneful whistling declares the local Wong family are up, about, and celebrating spring in the best possible way.

This afternoon a scrub turkey landed outside my kitchen window and gazed assessingly into my eyes. Having established I'm neither potential meal nor mate, and probably not a manure heap, it went away. Last seen heading up the road towards a neighbour's prized and awarded, beautifully manicured, garden blazing with colours to rival the turkey's own bright breeding signals.

Scrub, or brush, turkeys build nesting-mounds around now, which are sort of compost heaps. They love keen gardeners, who order in topsoil apparently for the turkeys' benefit. Entire deliveries of mulch have been known to move overnight down streets and even across roads, travelling from well-kept prize gardens to scruffy, scrubby, animal-friendly places such as mine.

True city-folk and foreigners think this is an urban myth. It isn't. The keen gardener up the road, a very nice bloke, isn't a born Queenslander, though he admires our wildlife: this is good because he's about to become very personally acquainted with some of it.

'Mulch?' I will say to him; 'Missing?', and this is where it gets fun. Do I treat him as though I believe he only imagines he once had great heaps of mulch? Or shall I tell him about our pitiless mulch-thieves, who roam the midnight streets with plastic bags and shovels, the better to win garden prizes? He'd doubtless find that easier to believe than if I told him birds stole the stuff.

On jacarandas, there's a saying among university students and graduates here: if you haven't studied well by the time the jacarandas bloom, you're in dead trouble.

But even students can't feel too worried, what with spring happening. Even with turkeys in it. Especially with turkeys in it.

Summer 2010 - Winter 2011 update (December - August)

It was a damp summer and quite a lot of Queensland flooded, or at least it seemed that way; the major city hospital, for example, gained an impressive moat. Unfortunately, the architects failed to include a drawbridge in their specifications.

The state of Queensland occupies around 1,850,000 square kilometers (715,309 square miles). If you think that's big, check out Western Australia (over 2.5 million sq km). For comparison, Texas is around 696,000 sq km - 269,000 sq miles - and England is over 130,000 sq km, or 50,000 sq miles.

Brazil fared far worse than us with its floods happening at the same time; we do better than most of the world when it comes to natural disasters because we've low-density population and fantastic emergency services and infrastructure. I've been in a few Australian disasters; as everywhere else in the world, folk simply drop what they're doing and head to the scene with shovels, blankets, water and food. The difference here is, the State Emergency Services are right there with the volunteers, and experienced military commanders are given more or less free rein to oversee the clean-up. A lucky country, indeed.

We've spent millions of dollars over the past months on a major enquiry to discover what caused our floods, and that report's just become available: the floods were definitely caused by a lot of water, and all that water was caused by a lot of rain.

The report has suggested we stop building on flood plains, but that's too late because (a) we all live on floodplains, and (b) we've already rebuilt on the flood plains. Damn!

As the floodwaters receded, Cyclone Yasi turned up in the north of the state, but we didn't need an enquiry about that because, like cats, cyclones just are, and we can't figure out how to blame anybody for them.

Now we're having our usual winter drought, but not a lot of winter with it: noon temperatures are in the mid-twenties Celsius (high seventies, Farenheit), so the weather's just not getting it. Neither's the wildlife; the turtle doves are sex-mad and breed all year, like rabbits and mice, but all the other species are at it too; juvenile birds from cockatoos to currawongs are appearing all over the place, and the alpha male possum regularly beats his chest up there on the roof. Good on him, I say; go for it, sorry, her.

The gardener arrives tomorrow to trim the dried-out trees and shrubs, ready for them to go crazy (going crazy is Queensland for proliferating without human assistance) when the rains happen. He's no need to do anything about what he insists upon referring to, in the face of all evidence, as my lawns. In the Big Dry nothing grows, though Dave the Gardener chastises me for laughing at my lawns; he reckons they have character. I tell him he shouldn't call them lawns. Habitat, maybe.

Some locals spend a fortune maintaining actual lawns, all green and soft, endlessly tending them, mowing every weekend, and cutting down any tree that dares shed a leaf or two onto their verdant carpet. I can't imagine why they do it: nobody seems to actually use the lawns for anything. People can get quite upset if anyone walks on the damn things.

Others concientious gardeners rip out any tree or shrub that isn't native, disregarding clear evidence that local wildlife has come, over the past couple of hundred years, to depend on these plants. Then they plant baby natives that in a decade or so might attract birds and things. Provided those birds and things haven't died of starvation waiting for their proper native plants - their natural food sources - to grow. We're truly a weird mob. Why not leave the food trees until the natives grow? I asked one chainsaw-wielder; he said, it's a weed, it has to go. Oh.

The tree in question feeds, or I should say fed, animals ranging from possums to parrots and was, century before last, a contender for the floral emblem of Queensland.

I sometimes wonder whether the folk who think that way about trees eat only raw food, and then check to be certain it's food native to the region they're living in.

But I expect they do. And they all walk to work so as not to disturb the environment by barging around it in motor vehicles.

So here we are, August 2011, haven't really had winter yet, but it must be cold because we're having the dry season. In a few weeks it'll be September, spring again, followed closely by December's summer and the wet season.

Not too wet, we hope, but if it does flood, at least now we know what causes it.

And someone's decided we should organize more cyclone shelters in north Queensland, so that's good. Better, anyway, than the decision to officially declare one particular school building an emergency cyclone shelter as Yasi charged across the Pacific towards us at great speed. It would've made a fine refuge, if most of the building hadn't been made of glass. Fortunately, someone noticed all the huge windows and suggested everyone go elsewhere, right now.

mailto:patwoods@wikianswers.com