Janitales

January doesn’t bring with it the same depressiveness in Australia as it does in the UK, but that’s not to say it isn’t without its flaws. First, you still have to go back to work after Christmas. I would argue it is more frustrating being tucked away in an office staring at a screen on beautiful sunny days than it is to be comforted in a cosy cubicle with hot drinks and heating during bleak Dickensian winters. The fact that most other people are still on holiday is equally unjust. The other thing you have to contend with at this time of year is an annoyingly resurgent Australian cricket team, and with it, the return to sledging and arrogance. The tennis is less annoying, except in cases where Channel 7 decides to cut away to a match featuring some hapless local and you have no other choice because they haven’t figured out how to use their other digital channels except for endless re-runs of Escape to the Country. And the same old adverts between games begin to drive you mad by the quarter finals.

Anyway, these are clearly all first world problems and in reality January has general been genial, though I have felt restricted in my enjoyment of more recent parts of it thanks to some stupid illness or other. This has kept me mostly in and around Canberra, though with torrents of rain and gloom on the coast, that’s probably a good thing. Getting out and about has included enjoying the garden, helpless to watch nature take over before it is tamed as far as it can be, feeling less guilty about its wildness when wild creatures take a liking to it.

‘If only I had the time and resources of the Australian National Botanic Gardens’ I sighed as I walked along one of their always charming pathways, under cooling ferns and aesthetically pleasing eucalypt and flower combinations. Or even the National Arboretum, which seems to be coming along at great speed, though I’m not so fond of its very regimental lines of trees, preferring as I do the wild, rambling landscape of my garden.

Not helping my gardening woes is the precariousness of January’s weather. A few characteristically blistering days have been interspersed with cool changes, brooding clouds and occasional downpours. The plants love it, and I don’t mind it too...it’s generally been dry enough to do stuff and not too hot that all you can do is eat ice cream and watch annoying cricket in the dark with the fans whirling at level 3. This mixture of sun and cloud and general broodiness about the place has enlivened the random evening walks upon Red Hill and thereabouts, a place where even my garden is put in the shade by its wild bushland charms.

As the sun sets from Red Hill Reserve the silhouette of higher ground out west gives the Brindabellas more prominence, resembling a mountainous landscape in which are very Australian-style mountains. Now, along the spectrum of wilderness these are up the top end, more so than Red Hill; indeed more so than my garden. They remain pretty inaccessible, despite their proximity to the national capital, a thought I find rather exciting...a reminder of what a vast and untamed place this remains. There is a road, and it’s a road I’ve never been on before, slightly uncertain of how narrow, winding and rutted the dirt track would be. But with some dry weather behind me, and very little traffic for company, all was well on the way to Mount Franklin, with some stunning views from the ridgeline to the west. There are further roads to follow on this journey.

While it isn’t really true to say all roads lead to the capital, come Australia Day it does take on something resembling prominence. For it is here that formal ceremonies and parties and shambolic protests mix with the ever-enduring sausage sizzles and lamington bake-offs. Australia Day for me was spent in a reasonably patriotic way – watching sport, eating food, wearing thongs. I couldn’t resist mixing a little with the locals, pottering about around some of the national institutions, accidentally coming across Lamington bake-offs and fighter jet fly bys. The sounds of Waltzing Matilda echoing on the breeze from the citizenship ceremony across the lake, latte-supping among Australian hats and rising intonations. And a big bang on which to go out on, obligatory fireworks by the lake.

With Australia Day, the completion of the annoying test series, the culmination of the tennis, you could be forgiven for thinking summer was coming to an end. People will be coming back to work, thinking how depressing it is. But the sun is still setting after eight, BBQs are still entirely acceptable and shorts are still de rigueur du jour. The garden will not be dying off for quite some time.