Welcome to Fall

It's March 24 in Melbourne and it has been Fall for two weeks now.  It feels odd, out-of-kilter; March should be warm breezes, snowdrops poking their heads through the ground, and the last few frantic weeks of skiing.    Fall here feels an awful lot like Summer anywhere else.

I have been told that Melbourne, more than any other city in Australia experiences the closest thing to four seasons (which can sometimes happen in a single day).  Most of the country is tropical or desert-like, but Melbourne, being slightly inland and on an ocean bay feels more temperate and less prone to extreme temperatures.  If this is Fall, I'm curious to experience Winter.  J's school only issues light jackets for warmth so I'm thinking Winter may be rather delightful to this Canadian-girl-still-recovering-six-years later-from-brutal-Calgary-winters.

We are out of boxes now and feeling more settled.  Murphy is doing well, J is enjoying school, C2 isn't travelling, I've figured my way around, and mum has booked her ticket to visit so all is well with my world at the moment.  If only I could figure out how to stop the bats from pooping all over my front terrace at night, things would be pretty perfect.  Though confronted with the horror of the tsunami in Japan, the growing violence in Libya, and a questionable western foreign policy where our leaders never seem to take heed of historical lessons, bat poop seems pretty inconsequential.

J's first school term ends in two weeks and I need to book a Murphy-friendly family holiday.  I'm thinking about a trip down the Great Ocean Road  stopping in Apollo Bay for a few days and visiting some of the world's great surf beaches.  Some hiking, some surf-watching, some beach exploring, and some good eating sounds pretty great to me.  I'll post details and pictures.