Winter

There's this movie called Monsoon Wedding which I guess is about a wedding that takes place during monsoon season. Since that did well, Australia should make Drought Wedding, a love story set against a backdrop of bushfire warnings and water restrictions.

To be fair, the drought isn't exactly a season, but Summer is - which is the perfect jumping off point for today's topic: what Winter means to me. For anyone reading this who lives overseas where it's Summer right now, there's nothing quite like an Australian winter with it's fierce blizzards and several feet of snow. The sky is blanketed in thick clouds; the temperature drops like thirty degrees; kangaroos install central heating in their pouches; aborigines skin each other to make coats. It's a cruel and unforgiving time of year. It also brings to mind the following things.

Mid-year exams
There's nothing as thrilling as sitting in the Royal Exhibition Building and trying to draw on all those facts you haven't studied while staring up at paintings on the ceiling almost good enough to have been done by a ninja turtle like the Sistine Chapel. But they don't seem to provide adequate heating. So not only are you under pressure, you're also freezing your nuts off. Yesterday during my Corporate Law exam there was snow falling around my desk as I chiselled away at the rock-solid sheet of ice in which my paper was encased. I could see my breath and my hands were turning blue. A snow plough drove past my desk, clearing a path for the invigilators who were all woolly mammoths (they're the only ones who can keep warm enough to do the job).

Who the f#%k drinks beer anymore?
I don't know about you but I find beer only tastes good in Summer. Once Winter rolls around it's time to get a big bottle of Irish whiskey and pour a little bit into a glass so I can sit down in my comfortable leather chair, wearing a nice warm gown and staring up at a huge portrait of my younger self while thinking about the stock market and what on Earth am I talking about?

Long walks of self-discovery
When it starts to get dark, I like to wrap myself in fur coats, put tennis rackets on my feet and venture out into the icy wasteland that is my suburb come Winter-time. Sometimes you find the frozen remains of lost travellers; poor souls who braved the outdoors and met an ill fate at the hands of a blizzard or the thing that nearly ate Luke Skywalker.

Roasting marshmallows over a warm fire
Sometimes, when I'm out on my soul-searching walk, I'll break into an abandoned shop and steal some marshmallows and a tin of cocoa powder. But sometimes I have to fight the wolves for it and that's how I got these horrific scars on my arms. The best thing about living in a house and not an igloo like my neighbours is that you can have a fire going without worrying about melting a hole in your wall. Then you dress your wolf-bites, make a steaming cup of hot chocolate, roast some marshmallows and wait for the full moon.

Fending off cannibals
During Winter they're all over the place. I'd like to say I'm happy that they're all dead by Summer, but all it does is make room for the huntsmen spiders which are infinitely worse.

The Abominable Snowman
I've met him. He's not that scary. He just NEVER SHUTS UP about Seinfeld.

And that's Winter in a nutshell. It's a great time of year. If you're from overseas then bring the family here for a ski trip, but make sure you pack plenty of emergency-lost-in-the-wilderness rations. Also bring a torch or something because there's no natural light here. The Sun couldn't be further away if it was photobombing pictures taken by the Hubble Telescope.