What's your favourite season?
Summer - the season of fun! But learning to love winter #17
As summer is officially over for those of us in the Southern Hemisphere (although March can bring some unusually hot weather!), I just wanted to share my thoughts on summers past and how much I’ve always loved summer. However, I am wanting to explore winter a lot more and could easily become a winter lover! Let me know your favourite season in the comments.
Summer is my favourite season, although winter is now a very close second. My favourite childhood memories are from summertime adventures. Dad teaching us to body surf at one of the local beaches. Summer holidays and camping adventures by the beach, river or lake. Road trips to other beach destinations. Floating too far out on a blow-up air mattress with my sister (it was the 70s, we had no fancy, schmancy pool noodles or paddleboards). After school trips to the beach on a hot day ending in ice cream and fish 'n' chips. Feeling like a boss swimming past the breakers and bodysurfing in to the shore. Watching Dad panic on the beach when the shark alarm sounded, but we were already in the shallows. Backyard pool parties. Bonfires at beach parties and questionable morals. First crushes and first kisses. New Year’s Eve parties and summer music festivals. We lived in a colder part of the country but never went to the snow. We weren't snow kids, we were beach kids. Summer kids. Summer was an adventure. Summer was, and still is, the season of fun.
I was lucky enough to grow up in a world without the internet, social media, smart phones or even computers really - our first computer was an Amiga 500 (we couldn’t afford a Commodore 64)! Having none of these distractions gave us (me, my siblings and any number of 70s and 80s kids) the freedom to roam far and wide in summer, whether on our bikes for a massive day out or just scooting around the neighbourhood from house to house, pool to pool, taking advantage of friendly hospitality, sometimes coming home for lunch and sometimes not. Summer was the time to be free and see the world. Even if our world was limited by a street boundary, a section of beach, or the edge of the caravan park, I always felt like we had a huge amount of freedom and an unlimited supply of adventures. Even when we visited my cousins in a small country town where my uncle was the local copper. We spent hours wandering the town, hanging out at the pool, yabbying in the farm dams - I guess we were always going to be safe there.
As I grew older the summertime adventures got bigger and farther away. I would go camping with friends, spend nights on the beach with a bonfire (back when it was legal to do so), go to random parties for no reason, and just spend as much time at the beach as much as I could. By the time I went to uni in the 90s the summer music festival was a thing (Big Day Out started in Sydney in 1992 - I was 19, but would not attend my first one until 1995) and I would spend a lot of summers traipsing between the beaches of Greater Geelong (Torquay/Jan Juc/Bells) and Melbourne, a good hour and a half each way, just to see good surf, good music, and good friends.
Over the years as a young adult and older solo adult, my holidays have always been beach, sunshine and tropical island focused. Purely for my love of the sun and the sense of calm that washes over me when I’m near the ocean. The refreshing smell of the salt air, the deviation between the thunderous roar of waves crashing on the shore or the gentle whisper of the ocean rippling in the wind, the mesmerising view of surfers in action - it all brings me a sense of inner peace that I don’t feel anywhere else. I am a beach woman through and through, it soothes my soul.
As much as I love the ocean I have never properly learnt to surf. I have tried, I have stood up and ridden a wave or two, but I failed spectacularly. I once went on a surfing safari summer holiday between Sydney and Byron Bay, travelling in a bus along the coast with other surfer wannabes, learning to surf at some of the best breaks Australia has to offer. It was 2009 and my sister had passed away the year before. Perhaps I was too old to learn to surf, or my heart just wasn’t in it. I nearly drowned on that surfing safari trip, and I learnt that I didn’t need to surf to love the ocean just the way I had always done. Being a surfer would not make me love the ocean more, or bring spiritual meaning a la Bodhi and Johnny Utah in Point Break. I wasn’t missing out.
The ocean still loved me and I loved it. We made a pact to keep our relationship just the way it was. Don’t get me wrong, I love surfing and it thrills me to watch surfers in action, but it is definitely not my thing to do. Two years on from the surfing safari I took a sunset stand-up paddle boarding (SUP) lesson in Haleiwa, Oahu. I was hooked, this was my ocean calling. The calmness and feeling of being one with the ocean while paddle boarding is where I found my own spiritual meaning with the ocean. When I got home from that trip, I bought my own SUP, an inflatable one that I can carry around in a back pack. It fits in the boot of my extremely small hatchback car and comes with me on any beach holiday. I have even taken it travelling overseas and SUP’d in the Cook Islands, Thailand and Cocos Keeling Islands. I will always love the surf and watching surfers surf, it is awe-inspiring, but me, I’m a swimmer and a paddleboarder and that’s what makes me happy when I’m beachside.
Now, as I get older and head into the twilight years of my life, I’m learning to love the colder seasons a little more each year. I mentioned earlier that I grew up in the colder part of Australia (not the coldest, but it felt like that when I was a kid) and instead of running away from the cold, as I did in my 20s, I’m embracing the weather, the fashion and the adrenalin rush of heading out with a coat and umbrella not knowing what to expect. I’m also considering taking an Antarctica trip as soon as I can save enough money - they ain’t cheap my friends! This is a massive step for me as I’ve only seen snow (proper snow, not sleet snow) a handful of times in my life. The first time I was maybe 14 or 15 on my high school school ski trip to the ski fields in Victoria, only a couple of hours away from home. The second time I went on a snowboarding trip with uni friends, I was maybe 22 or 23, and the third was backpacking in Europe. Some lovely Swedish girls woke me up in my backpackers hostel the second day I was there because it was snowing and I had mentioned my lack of snow-seeing on arrival the night before. I ran around in the snow with them in my pyjamas at 6am and jetlagged, and it was THE best start to my 5 weeks in Europe (after going back to sleep for another 5 or 6 hours) and also the only time I saw snow on that trip. I’ve also seen snow a couple of times while travelling through New Zealand, but not enough to remember when or where.
It is now autumn in Australia and soon enough the trees will change colour and the air will get colder. I wonder if I should try a pumpkin latte like I see in the movies? In the past I would have hunkered down and barely left the house, unless it was to flee to some tropical island for a break in the sun. But this year I’m going to venture out to the autumn and winter wonderlands in my own backyard. There might even be a winter beach adventure thrown in for good measure, I mean I really can’t stay away all that long. Whatever I do, solo or with friends, I’ll be sure to let you know if I’m embracing the change or wishing myself away to a gorgeous tropical island…only time will tell.
I hope the change in season wherever you are in the world, from summer to autumn, or winter to spring, gives you something to look forward to!
What I’m watching: The Way Home (a Hallmark series shown on Binge in Australia). I love a bit of homely time travel adventure. It’s easy to watch although I’m not a fan of the acting by Andie McDowell…the other actors are great!
