Oh hai, summer.

So far, summer weather has shown itself to be akin to a moody fifteen-year old girls. Prone to wailing tears, doorslams and then bright sunny moods that suddenly revert back to sulking.

In fact, today I happily awoke to streams of sunlight bursting through my window. That isn't to say that the sound of rain pattering on the tin roof of my backyard abode isn't a lovely sound to wake up to, but I much prefer the warm ground under my toes over having to wade through ankle deep water to get into the house.

This really doesn't do any justice to how inconvenient and
surprisingly deep the water is outside my room.

However, as this is Melbourne after all, it's pouring with rain and Elvis the Dog is cowering on the couch at the sound of thunder. It appears I'll be stepping my hunt for an umbrella up a notch.

I have to admit, I'm a little envious of Mitch's lamentations about his pale Irish skin being burnt to a crisp over in Perth. In the time that I've spent writing this, the rain has stopped, the sun has come out, and then the rain has thus resumed (with the sun still out).

I suppose I have a love-hate relationship with summer. For all the endless complaining about sitting around covered in sweat and constantly feeling uncomfortable I'll be doing in about a month's time, all I feel like doing at the moment when a (half) day of sunshine occurs is smiling. It's amazing, how a sky of more blue than grey can lift the mood of pretty much everyone. People are cheerier, more polite, and certainly in Melbourne, are prone to disrobing at the first sign of sun. I guess that means these legs'll eventually have to see the light of day. I suppose I owe them that much. Without a trace of a joke, I can honestly say that I can count the number of times my legs have been out from under tights or jeans (in public of course, I lounge around in shorts all the time at home) in the past five months on two hands. Ridiculous, no? Time to hit the gym, and make my pale legs match the colour of my arms.

The few feeble days of proper sunshine in the past week or so have been seized upon however, and luckily for us, the weather gods smiled down on us throughout the entire day of our outdoor escapades. Brian, Fish, some pals from work and I trouped down to Chesterfield farm earlier this week to engage in some hayfever, picnicking, and delighted squealing at baby animals. There's just something about seeing cuter, smaller versions of already quite cute animals that brings forth the inner squealing girl in me. And everyone else, it seems. There were baby goats (who seemed intent on eating our clothing and bags), a baby cow, countless bunnies, baby pigs, baby chickens, and baby ducks. Hell, there was even a baby llama accompanied by his mother. A small posse of geese roamed the farm, honking at us, and an ugly turkey sat there, staring. We scampered around, our voices significantly more high pitched than they usually are. The presence of deer, donkeys, sheep, bunnies and especially the llamas even made me forget that I was sneezing every two minutes and I had been bitten on the face by a spider (I'm not even kidding).

Photos via Brian

To top it all off, there was definitely a delicious picnic involved. Everyone brought sandwiches, enough for everyone else to have a few, so as a result the sheer amount of food was akin what one would use to feed a Lord of the Rings sized army. Fish even made profiteroles. Those, combined with the fairy bread Carly brought, meant that I for one, felt like I should have been rolled back to the carpark. Certainly, that would have been preferable to walking. I still have sandwiches in my fridge, if anyone's interested.

Let you be a witness now as I vow to at, one point in my life, somewhere in the future, own a llama. It's testament to my overwhelming love of llamas that I am posting this picture up (again, courtesy of Brian) even when I look sickly (thanks hayfever and spider), sans make up, and my ridiculous excitement means I have about ten thousand chins. There is something very, very spectacular about llamas.