This hot weather has got me to thinking about my childhood, and the recent loss of one of its pleasures.
As you know, I am currently living in the family home as a result of the passing of my father three years ago and a condition of his will being that my Cherub and I live here for ten years to get back on our feet financially.
For the past three summers, I have lived as I did when I was growing up in this house, and living through those Melbourne summers where we'd have three or four consecutive days of 40+ degrees.....and no air conditioning.
My parents were very anti air conditioning, their reasons on the surface were the expense and what I call the 'having a pool in Melbourne' mindset - you buy one and then use it for such a small portion of the year that it's hardly worth having. Of course, in relation to air con, this mindset extends further to become 'you buy one, and then use it for such a small portion of the year AND it costs a fortune to run, so it's hardly worth having'.
I suspect, however, that underneath it all was a realisation that having air con takes away one of life's great pleasures, and having recently had air con installed here to help cope with the heat, I am myself now missing the same life pleasure.
My parents were not big beach people. To them the beach was for throwing in a line to catch some fish, not necessarily for having a swim. So, unlike many of my childhood friends, my summers were not spent in a caravan at the beach, making the long trek to places like Rosebud, Rye or Torquay (and in the seventies and eighties, particularly because I never got to go there, these places did hold a certain place in my imagination as a place of fun, sea, sand, surf and small amounts of envy of the friends that made the annual summer trek to these places).
My summers were spent at home (parents usually working), often on my own, watching the cricket on the television, sweltering it out in our concrete/fibro commission home in downtown Fawkner, with only a couple of fans to see me through. Later, in the eighties, as part of a minor renovation, we had ceiling fans installed in the loungeroom and main bedrooms. (Apparently they turn both ways, depending on what way you turn the switch, thereby allowing them to push the warm air from the gas heater down through the room during winter - but I have never been able to work out which way is which).
What we came to discover (and what many people with ceiling fans will also attest to), is that the fans work well when you first turn them on, but after consecutive days of hot weather, they really only circulate the already hot air inside.
This is the time that a bit of enterprise is required - jumping in the shower every hour, not drying off, putting minimal amounts of clothing on, and sitting directly under the fans works a treat, and is something I learned to do growing up and have since taught my Cherub.
But, while I never got to experience the 'joys' of the beachside holiday, I had my own personal childhood special moments during the summer. This was in the evening, when the temperature outside would drop significantly, and we would open every door and window in the house to let the cool breeze flow through.
As the hot afternoon turned to evening, I would pop my head out of our dark house (all curtains closed to keep as cool as possible) to see whether the 'cool' had arrived. Once it did, I'd tell Mum, and around we would go, opening everything up. Then, it was outside with a cool drink of water, on the back or front step, simply sucking up the relief of the cool breeze.
It was especially beautiful when a cool change with rain came through - I would run out and let the rain soak through my hair and my clothes to help my body temperature lower and the relief ride over me.
These cool changes, especially after a run of several hot days, were the only time that I saw my mother be 'un-ladylike'. Many people would not believe this of her, but once that cool change came through, and her jobs for the day were done, she would crack open a cold beer (always poured into a glass), and sit on the back steps in a pose that you would only think a man would make (elbow on knee, legs sprawled out all over the place) and gently savour that amber fluid as she spent her own time enjoying the change in the weather.
It was a special feeling to be able to sit by our front door or loungeroom windows and just feel that cool change on my face. Quite frankly, it almost made the horror of the hot weather disappear from memory, and I knew that finally I would be getting a good night's sleep.
Now, with the air conditioning installed, this feeling is at risk of being lost. I'm very grateful, of course, for not having to withstand another summer of sweltering in this concrete palace of mine, but something inside of me thinks that maybe, just maybe, this was another reason that my parents were so hesitant to put air con into our house - they were wise enough to know that with the installation of the technology, came a loss of a childhood memory that maybe they just didn't want to lose, and possibly even wanted us to experience for ourselves.
Well, I shall romaticise it that way anyway.
And I will also admit to turning the air con off a little earlier than needed yesterday, letting the house warm up just a tad, and opening up the windows and doors to let the breeze be pushed through by the ceiling fans when the time was right. It wasn't the same, but I guess it was close enough.
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