My favourite part of the year

I love the end of the year; the lead up to hot weather, Christmas, holidays, my birthday... In Canberra I always feel this starting in September, when it goes back to being merely quite cold, instead of freezing. You see more people about and suddenly there are more social activities and work revs up because people want to get things done before the end of the year. I love activity, I love being busy, I love warm weather and I love to look forward to things, so I guess that’s why this is my favourite time of the year.

This year I feel like I’ve gotten an early start on that time. The weather hasn’t stopped being warm, and although that’s a little difficult whenever you have to step away from the comfort of an airconditioner (and believe me that happens often), it triggers memories in my head of end of the year, end of school, end of uni. There is a grass track I walk on part of my way to work here and it reminds me strongly of the track to my old primary school. It all combines to make me feel like I’m constantly on the brink of a holiday or a good time somewhere. (No, in case you hadn’t noticed, living and working in Dili is not really like a holiday. Not the kind you’d want to go on, anyway. I cook in a hut every day and wash in cold water, remember?)

I don’t think I am that close to the holiday (3 months til Darwin! 3 months!) or a good time in the sense of lots of things happening (seeing I am still stuck at home all the time). But, I (in usual organisational mode) am now making some preparations for getting my stuff and myself back to Australia. And that makes me happy and I enjoy funny little things about my life here now more (the dogs, my crazy walk to work).