Is August the new Feb?

It's been horrid if not quite torrid here - the clear, bright, sparkly days I raved about earlier have been replaced with pea-souper days of 65-70% humidity that make the otherwise balmy days in the high 20s/low 30s hard going.
And, bloggers in other parts of the country, where summers are truly hot with life-sapping humidity, write of sadness, ennui, irritability, stagnation and enervation that can only be attributed to too much summer.
I'm truly a winter soul and, in only my second year in this corner of this hemisphere, already find myself looking forward to September and the return of the cool. Just when I was thinking that August was kinda like February/March back home, I came upon this excellent piece in Slate, which says it all.

:: Joyful reunion ... yesterday, I drove one of our new managers, Stephanie, to the Qantas freight terminal at LA airport to pick up her dog, Lewis.


Stephanie is from Perth - if you've ever had coffee and baklava at the amazing little Boucla, in Rokeby Road, or wiled away a happy hour or two at the Brisbane Hotel, you may well recognise her. She was the dynamo who ran both places - and now she's ours!


Poor Lewis, a staffy-boxer cross, was a very happy young dog when he was released from his crate. Eighteen hours in the air from Perth via Sydney, and then two friggin' hours on the ground in LA while we got the paperwork sorted with Qantas staff, the health department and customs.

Anyway ... there was such a happy ending!