While pundits spent their time debating the presence of climate change the weather is off doing its own thing like a defiant child.
This winter the weather has gone unexpectedly cold. This has been the wettest winter in a decade, the best snow season in years and ultimatley it's leaving us feeling relieved and at the same time kind of out of rhythm with such a sudden blustery shift.
Friends say it's an old school winter, meaning I think these were the days of our youth, when school sports were postponed because of a water logged ground. Before the weather became wild and woolly, there was a rush on to install water tanks for keeping safe every drop of rain, the grass was dying and there were ancient natives that longed for a drink. We looked to the heavens for portents and signs and began preparing for the worst.
The weather was a political player.
This winter we are back on cycle. The days are planned for rainy squall patches, there are books to read and partners to slip up next to in warm cosy beds. Bellies are growing larger and looks calmer as the cold makes us slower in its weird hibernal way.
Maybe it's the comfort of being toasty. Science says it's intuitive, the circadian clock. This is the body clock, a seasonal timer that is why we wrap ourselves up in a cocoon.
New discoveries are being made of old clothes and conversations are flowing. It is easier to sit still in this weather, to think about all those things that are forgotten when the sun drugs the brain.
This is not the doom and gloom they were predicting, just a good-old fashioned Melbourne winter of frosty mornings and feeling sorry for football players as the powerful southerly blows in right off the straight. It makes the town seem more its moody self or as local crime writer Peter Temple says Melbourne is a great place to write because it's got serious weather.
There are lots of things to celebrate this season. The time spent in front of the heater, a secret day off work, money saved from hiding indoors, the greening of gardens, filling of dams and the absence of uncertainty toward the world when we look up at the sky.
