Giving vent to new-found summer love

AFTER decades of sweat and struggle, Margaret Wenham has finally welcomed airconditioning into her life. And there’s no going back, she writes.

LAST night, when I got home from work, I evoked the Rev Geraldine Grainger, better known as the divinely funny Vicar of Dibley.

I did this by standing in front of an insentient object and declaring my adoration for it.

In the Vic-ster’s case, she’d just installed and stacked to the max a designated ice cream fridge. In my case, it was the recently installed, split-system air conditioner in my lounge.

Like Gerry, I threw my arms out and declared, sincerely: “I love you”.

It’s embarrassing but this wasn’t the first time I’ve said this out aloud. I must have done it half a dozen times on Christmas Day when it was a blazingly hot 36C outside with a humidity factor that would otherwise have had me break into a sweat just bending over to get the next beer out of the Esky.

I said it when I was cooking the red current-glazed turkey breast in the oven Christmas morning — something my survival instinct and desire to not provoke heat-induced arguments with just about anyone over just about anything, has prevented me from ever attempting before with a 30C+ forecast (viz., most Christmases).

I said it when my sons brought inside the long table from the deck and we began decorating and setting it for lunch and I found myself laughing in a strange, carefree way and singing along with Bing while ferrying between the kitchen and table.

And I said it again when the oysters and prawns were served because they could stay on the table for more than 15 minutes, which is when I normally estimate the bacteria really start to get a wriggle on.

Never has airconditioning been a more valuable asset to one’s home than right now. (Pic: supplied)

And I said it twice last Sunday when I came indoors puce and dripping after mowing, having adroitly turned it on before venturing out to do battle with my triffid-inspired garden.

After Christmas lunch — which included hot plum pudding and brandy-laced custard — there was much appreciative murmurings and comparisons with some of the blisteringly hot Christmases past, including the furnace like 2001Yultide, the photos from which show us listlessly slumped with red, glistening faces around a half-cleared table where there’s an almost discernible haze above the prawn shells bowl and a dozens of half drunk, abandoned flutes of warm champers and stubbies, most with alcohol poisoned dead flies in them. The post prandial “ball sports” insisted on by Uncle John down at the local cricket nets didn’t help with the energy levels either.

But there it is, I’ve joyously joined the majority of my fellow Australians counteracting our seemingly increasing summer heat with some form of airconditioning. According to the ABS — and the stats are a few years old now — only about one quarter of households have no reverse cycle or refrigerated air conditioning or evaporative coolers. I resisted the temptation for as long as I could on the basis of soaring electricity prices but last summer’s long stretch of high 30 to low 40s heat finished me off.

I’m a little worried about my strong feelings for my unit though. It can’t be a fevered imagination as I’m cool as a cucumber but I reckon the affection is reciprocated. When it’s bed time and time to turn it off, it gives me a long, slow, loving wink.

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