Last week week in Orange we got a big dump of snow. Locals say it was the most snow they’d seen in decades, so I felt very privileged to have witnessed it. On Thursday when I awoke at about 6:30 everything was white outside and I immediately woke mrshill to tell her, even though she’d said the night before to not wake her until 7 if it’s snowing outside - but I thought, what if it’s all melted by then (and woke her anyway)? Of course it did not melt by 7 - it didn’t start melting until Friday. School on Thursday was open with ‘minimal supervision’, aka parents were encouraged to keep their kids at home and enjoy the day with them. Approximately two-thirds of the student population did just that so it was a funny old day with year cohorts all placed together in one classroom (watching movies and playing games) so teachers could take turns at having extra release to catch up on outstanding work. I was having flashbacks to last year when the number of students at school took a nose-dive with the beginning of the COVID lock-downs.
Fantasy
Pretty ...
Reality
After school that day mrshill and I went out into the garden to play around a bit in the snow and tend to some bushes that started to topple over from the weight of the snow. When we came inside I noticed that I had a bit of a runny nose and scratchy throat. The runny nose was probably just a result of being outside in the freezing cold snow, not a virus I thought. But it got worse through the night and the next morning (Friday) I called in sick. It was the long weekend (Queen’s birthday) - always a welcome break in June when Winter blues and and end-of-term fatigue start to kick in. We were planning to spend the long weekend at my parents’ place in Katoomba - they’re away at the moment also escaping the Winter blues. We weren’t sure though if it would be safe driving with potential black ice on the roads. We ummed and arred several times before making the decision - we went.
There were two big reasons to escape for the long weekend. Reason 1 - it’s freezing and our rented house in Orange is not very well insulated. Consequently we are often cold inside unless we hunker down in the living room with the doors closed and the heater cranked. The house in Katoomba has central heating in the main part of the house as well as a lovely open fireplace so it’s lovely and cosy when it comes up to temperature. During Summer when we joined the rat-race to find a place to rent, we didn’t have time to be choosy. Winter wasn’t exactly at the forefront of our minds. It was just - get something liveable and convenient with enough space by this date. Reason 2 - our internet has been down for over a month now. We have been receiving woeful service from our ISP and we are fed up. We really miss having decent internet at home. It’s also had a negative impact on mrshill’s business who works from home. The lure of central heating and working internet were too great to stop us from going. The drive was perfectly safe and by Saturday night my mild cold had passed and we enjoyed a lovely relaxing weekend in the Blue Mountains.
Back in Orange - we had a technician come out yesterday to fix our internet and fail (again!) and now we have to wait until Saturday for them to come back. Also, it’s freezing! No surprises.