I'm sitting here at the laptop and my weather widget has updated to 37.8 degrees at Batchelor.

Septembers sees the onslaught of the hot dry easterlies of the late Dry Season. My garden and my skin are taking a beating. The humidity is down to 9%. But still new life comes forth in this the monsoonal north's equivalent of Spring. Trees are coming into leaf and budding ready to flower. As the 'Build Up' season comes on through October and November the flowering and the new leaves will continue well before the first rains. If plants could hope you would say they were drawing on their inner resources in the hope of rain.

I'm sitting here at the keyboard and not in my car heading up to Darwin for a  Bodybalance class because I'm still nursing stitches from the incision on my shoulder to remove a carcinoma. The attractive and very attentive new young doctor at our community health clinic had to have a second go at me last Wednesday so I am being very cautious about over extending and tearing the stitches. 

How lucky I feel to live in this small town with a government owned clinic with GPs who bulk bill and the ability to see a nurse whenever for no cost. In many ways I feel closer to more accessible medical attention attention here in Batchelor than I ever would in Darwin.

So when the sun goes down and the sea breeze kicks in from the coast that is some 80 km from here I will go out and survey the garden and make sure the sprinklers are coming on, hand-watering the new trees and the lovely azalea that is flowering for all it is worth this year, in spite of the hot dry winds.

 And will I need a cardigan again tomorrow morning. The dryness of the air has dropped the morning temperatures down just below twenty degrees again. That can't last for much longer.

D