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!

A pot of basil (here pron. bay-zill)

And she forgot the stars, the moon, the sun,
And she forgot the blue above the trees,
And she forgot the dells where the waters run,
And she forgot the chilly autumn breeze;
She had no knowledge when the day was done,
And the new morn she saw not; but in peace
Hung over her sweet Basil evermore ...

Basil always makes me think of Keats' Isabella, whose proud Florentine brothers did away with her lover, Lorenzo, and buried him in a shallow grave (of course!) in woods by the Arno. But love wins - sort of - when Lorenzo's ghost tells Isabella what happened. So she goes out in the dead of night (of course!) and digs him up, cuts off his head, wraps it in a scented hanky and takes it home. She cleans him up, brushes his hair, kisses him a bit and then - brainwave! - plants his head in a pot of basil. All of which is a pretty dodgy plan which, needless to say, doesn't end at all well. Though she does grow a fantastic crop of basil, apparently.

Much like mine here, which was given to us by our dear friends, Paul and Debby Hopper, who had us out to dinner at their house in beautiful Rancho Santa Fe on Tuesday night. The basil they gave us has almost filled our house with its sharp, sunshiny scent - yum. They also grow zucchini, pumpkin and the plumpest, reddest, juiciest tomatoes:

They even save the seeds to plant for the next summer.
I do so miss having a garden when I smell their basil and the warm skin of their tomatoes - sigh!

:: The weather in San Diego is absolutely, spot-on, perfectly perfect. This week, the expected maximums are all in the 26 to 28-degree range, and the nights are so cool that I had to put a cardie on last night when we were having drinks by the pool.

:: Keeping the summery theme going - and to remind you of the glories to come over there as your wet and wild winter really digs in - here's a pic of the lovely golden tulips that newly-arrived Bondi recruits Steph and Matt, from Perth, brought me last night when they came over for a home-cooked meal: