There is, you may observe, a dichotomy at work.
We are in the process of exchanging seasonal greetings
with our friends and colleagues who are Christians or, at least, Westerners,
perhaps.
I added the rider because it seems to me that not
everybody who celebrates the festivities of Christmas is a Christian.
We have expounded upon the proliferations of greed and
excess previously on this ‘Blog’ so it is not that towards which my fingers,
figuratively, point at this time.
The seasonal variation to which I address this comment has
more to do with the weather.
Down south in the countries that are more adjacent to
Antarctica the weather in December is warm. Perhaps hot. The people who live in
Perth, Western Australia, will inform you that their summertime temperatures
are in the mid-thirties centigrade. Scotland, on the other hand, is quite often
recording temperatures in the minus numbers in December.
Calgary, Canada, meanwhile will experience swings of
twenty-three degrees Celsius in July and August that will plummet to the minus
thirteen in December and January.
[Note that these are average figures and do not allow for
seasonal temporary variations.]
Here, in the tropical paradise of Malaysia where I live,
the temperature varies from a mean of thirty-two degrees in December to a high
of thirty-four in March.
Of course, there are variations here and there. We
sometimes get really hot days when it can reach thirty-seven and cold days when
the temperature drops to a finger numbing thirty.
The point is that we live in a perpetual summertime. The
trees are always green. The grass never stops growing. There is always fruit of
some sort to be had. We are without seasons.
Well, we are without obvious seasons and yet there are
seasonal variations in the fruit available. The vegetation has seasons that we
humans are oblivious to experiencing.
Possibly monkeys know about the seasons since their
migrations past my window vary in time and animal density from month to month.
In the Antipodes and the northern countries there are
increasingly evident seasons.
You, in Europe and America, get winters and summers that
are separated by autumns and springs.
You get variations in tree growths, leaf colours and
flower blooms. Your fruit depends on the weather and the time of year. Most of
your fruit ripens in autumn so you are dependant on storage facilities to eat
fruit at other times. Hence you have preserves and pickles.
This brings me back to the initial point of this writing.
People, who are born and brought up in tropical
climates—like Malaysia, seem to yearn for seasons. They like, for example, to
be cold!
Very odd, that.
Many ex-patriates like the even temperatures of the
tropics.
And yet.
When I ask ex-patriates what it is that they miss about
their home country they will tell you that they miss seasons.
They miss walking through the woods, kicking piles of
leaves; they miss the beach in summer and the bare trees of winter. They miss
the new, fresh buds and flowers of spring that heralds a new season of
regrowth.
When they get home they miss the warmth of the tropics.
Especially when they go out in the winter and Jack Frost nips at the fingers
and their breath freezes in the air.
Winter always looks so nice in photographs.
Long may it stay there.
“Two ice cubes in my drink, please, waiter. Thank you.”
