The desire to go travelling inched up a notch today. I woke early this morning, needing to be at work all week at about six am. It’s one of those weeks where I “get my hands dirty”, so to speak. When I woke at five am, I pressed the snooze button twice before finally getting out of bed. The shower was a welcome relief, as it was a fairly chilly morning, evident by the first light snowfall in areas like Orange, Thredbo and Lithgow.

Last night was our first “cold night” in Sydney. To be honest, it was still warm enough to sit outside (with a blanket over my knees) enjoying the peace and quiet of my balcony. However, the older I get, the more I think I need to move “a little further north each year”, as Graeme Connors once sang. I just don’t understand those people who say, “I love the winter”. I’m a summer boy, through and through, I’ve realised.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been tracking via my website the temperature differences between Sydney and Stockholm. And for the first time on the weekend, Stockholm was, for a little while at least, warmer than Sydney. And when I came home this afternoon and checked, I saw that both Sydney and Stockholm were equally as warm (or cold, depending on your perspective). Thirteen and rainy in Sydney; thirteen and fine in Stockholm. It’s a no-brainer, really.

The other sign winter is on the way is that Big Brother starts on television tonight. It’s one of those programs I’ve watched ever year since it started, although I did miss a few weeks of the show when I was living in Darwin where they didn’t, at the time, have Channel 10. I’ll be watching again tonight, as they enjoy several weeks of Gold Coast sunshine before finally donning their tracky-dacks and beanies.

And so as I watch BB and as I watch the temperatures in Sydney start to fall, my thoughts turn to the European summer. “I’ll miss winter this year”, I told the woman at my local cafe the other day, when she asked what I was up to. At that point, I thought of mid-July when it’s freezing in Sydney, and I’ll be enjoying the long summer days of Sweden. And weeks later, I’ll be enjoying the often stinking-hot summer of the south of France. Bring it on!

My friend Sue (who is now from Melbourne), told me she was back in Brisbane this weekend, and enjoyed what she described as “shorts weather”. Meanwhile I’m back in Sydney, getting out of bed far too early, and already wearing my tracky-dacks. You can understand why my desire to go travelling inched up a notch (or five) today.