It feels like Christmas

On July 1, a Wednesday, it reached 37 'C. This is hot. The sun starts at 4.15am and doesn't leave til well after 9. We were sweating.

It sounds odd to English folk, but when I've woken up the last few mornings it's felt like those last few mornings  before Christmas day. It's bright already, and hot, and the air is full of energy. It feels like summer before I ever left home, like the depths of summer holidays in Hawke's Bay (but when Dad had given us a pardon from helping out in the woolshed). It feels like anticipation and small, perfectly-formed adventures.

My new trees.

Outside are the tall trees planted at the edge of the little square gated garden, and they are so green and so leafy. Even the flowers are green and leafy, paler shades dripping with long golden-brown stamens that fall off in the breeze and scatter on the road and the paths and lawn in the garden. There are roses in the garden too, a whole variety all going through their cycles at different stages, from bud to blown.

The bird calls are all the same as our garden, enough that I don't always notice those that are missing - we always had very loud and aggressive thrushes and blackbirds on our lawn. The only difference is the calling of crows, who live everywhere and are seen everywhere. Their call is harsh but I rather like them, and I like hearing their call. They keep making me get 'Murder of One' by the Counting Crows in my head, as I stand there counting crows:

There's a bird that nests inside you, 

Sleeping underneath your skin.

When you open up your wings to speak

I wish you'd let me in.

I am in a terraced house. When I was little, I hated the idea of living in a house that had stairs. I didn't like the idea of being so far from the ground, and was probably also a little afraid of falling down them. Now I am staying in a terraced house temporarily in a row of houses that are actually just one building, despite all the coloured front doors and separating walls, and the stairs are thin and steep and I actually near did fall down them (maybe more than once). But I really like this house.

One view one way, clearly not of my trees.

Tree and street.

I like sleeping on the top level, up all the thin steep stairs, above the street and nearly at the same height as the trees. I like going to the bottom level and seeing feet walk past as I look up out of the kitchen, and then out the back to the small garden where the brick walls are covered in creepers and ferns. I like the evenings up there especially - there's always a breeze in the evenings, living so near the canal, and with the days so hot, and it comes rushing in over my face as I lie on the bed and write or read or pretend to write and read while I'm actually daydreaming about things I could be writing or reading. I love hearing the trees.

There was a thunder storm over the weekend, thunder and lightning and a moment of sudden wonderful heavy rain pelting down onto the roof and the street. I pulled up the blinds so we could watch the flashes better as they burst on the clouds. We lowered the sliding windows a little, just enough to stop the rain coming in but keep letting air come in - it was still warm.

There are still months to go before Christmas, before those days before Christmas that are sometimes better than Christmas itself, and when it comes the likelihood of it being hot is quite low. And I kind of hope it snows. If it snows, it will feel like Christmas anyway. It's never sunny at Christmas on TV.