The Autumn Of Our Discontent

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It’s autumn. And strange. The frangipani trees are not losing their leaves but flowering. The bougainvillea are luminescent and the star jasmine promises another burst of high-summer colour.

We awake, again, to a smoke-streaked sky and the smell of burning wood and leaves from big fires across the city’s south-west.

Days are so hot that the weather bureau has brought out a special report that tells us to prepare for the heat to stretch into June. Temperature records are being smashed – again. Monday, April 9, was the hottest April day ever recorded in Sydney, when temperatures at the Bureau of Meteorology Observatory Hill site near Millers Point reached 35.4°C. A couple of days later was the city’s second-hottest April day on record.