The Hardest Thing To Get Used To....

.....When coming to a New Country

Val has tagged me with this interesting subject, after chronicling on her blog the woes of supermarket shopping in Australia (versus the US) during the early 70,s.

Alice was inspired by Val’s post to write about shopping during her early years on the farm in Australia. I’m sure you’ll enjoy both posts.

Overlooking Whale Beach, NSW

The hardest adjustment for me, however, was not shopping…which was a pleasure here in this country. I’d have to say it was the Climate and the total lack of beaches in my new location.
I had come from the veritable paradise of Palm Beach (we actually lived above Whale Beach, but the postal address was Palm Beach), NSW, and the long, hot summers of Oz, to the countryside of NY State. Here the summers are very short and usually quite mild, and the winters are long and cold! Initially, I was so excited to think I’d be living in an area where it snowed! I hadn’t even set eyes on snow until my 18th year, when I went on a skiing vacation to the beautiful Perisher Valley, near Mt. Kosciusko, Australia’s highest mountain.

Our back door in December 2002

Spending a week or two ‘playing’ in the snow is vastly different, I learned, than enduring an entire winter of it. After my first l o n g and seemingly never-ending NY winter, my enthusiasm had paled considerably. I’d seen all the snow I ever wanted to see! Not only did I have to get used to driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road, I had to learn to drive in snow! Now that can be a scary experience, especially if one has to brake suddenly for a deer with very little road sense, that decides to run across the road in front of your car….not an uncommon experience here in the country. I assure you, it’s not fun!

Living close to the beach growing up, I had of course, spent lots of time there, swimming in the surf or the enclosed pool, sunbaking and reading a good book on the warm sand, exploring the rocky areas at either end of the beach. Walking on warm, damp sand at the ocean’s edge is an experience no one should miss. On hot days the dry sand burns your feet and squeaks when you walk on it :) There are a myriad things to see and do. The sights, sounds and smells of the ocean are a feast for the senses…..except perhaps rotting seaweed and dead sea creatures….although I think I could enjoy even those right now, as I gaze outside at yet another cold and windy, snowy day.

One does eventually get used to the climate though, and once our bodies are acclimatized to this weather the hot summers of Oz can feel too hot. When we moved back and lived over there for three and half years between 1979 and 1983 (before returning to this country), I found the summers too hot. I know most of my Aussie friends and family wouldn’t mind mixing a little bit of our cold weather with the extreme temperatures they were experiencing during December and January.

There are some positive things about winters in NY though. They give us some necessary downtime from working like a crazy person all summer in the garden, as well as all the other activities we try to cram into our too-short warm season. It’s a time for reflection and reading, and getting some of those jobs done that we don’t find time for in the summer.
And this winter, for me, it’s been a time to discover and get to know something about all those great new blogging friends out there!
I doubt I’ll get much time for blogging once the warmer weather comes :)

I sure would enjoy a stroll along Whale Beach right now on a lovely Aussie summer day……

I'd like to tag Chest of Drawers.....