Late Summer

This was our first "typical" Brisbane summer (the first two years were nothing but rain) and we can really feel the difference in the temperatures as we near the last part of summer, which ends on February 28 in Australia.  We have been through weeks of temperatures in the high 30s, with high humidity, and have been through downpours, thunderstorms and wind like we have never seen before.  Now that autumn is approaching, the days seem a bit cooler and there are more people out enjoying the end of the summer.  Today we walked all along the river and the crowds seemed much bigger than usual.  We even saw the mounted patrol, something that we haven't seen since we left Calgary!

Crowds at the market in Southbank

Mounted Patrol

The other thing that we have noticed is that there are a lot more critters coming into the house.  We don't mind the little daddy-longlegs, the geckos or the ants, but a couple of nights ago we walked into the garage (the attached garage) and were horrified to see a gigantic Huntsman spider scurrying across the floor.  It was so big that JB actually thought it was a mouse!  This is something that Aussies clearly don't get too bothered by.  All the Canadians that JB works with freaked out when she showed them the photo of the spider and made all the appropriate and sympathetic comments ("I would die!", "Poor you" and "You should have called in sick for all the stress") but the Aussie she showed it to said, "We were thinking of getting that finish on the floor in our Rumpus Room.  Do you like it?"  Clearly this person has lost touch with reality!

The beastly spider!  (and yes, we do like the floor)

Horrifying!

We sprayed the spider with our Napalm-type spider killer spray and it seemed to do the trick but minutes later when we went back in the garage in hopes of picking up it's corpse, the spider wasn't there!  We can only hope that he has crawled off somewhere, away from our house, and has died.  At least this one wasn't in our bedroom!