The first taste of summer

Today is the first day when wandering around it actually feels hot! Not just warm, hot enough that coming inside to the air conditioning is a real relief. The heat hints at all the summer fun to come and there are other signs pointing the way to a rapidly approaching summer.

Summer by the senses for me equals:

Smell - dusty dry, eucalyptus scented, those days when you can smell the heat before you feel it.
Sight - a hot hard blue sky. That cloudless sky so blue and bright you have to squint to look at it.
Taste - a mango dripping with juice.
Sound - cicadas singing their lungs out, amazing me with the ability of such a tiny insect to make so much noise.
Touch - the sizzle of bare legs on overheated car seats, or those few searing steps on the sand as you sprint into the cool of the ocean.

Along with that heat, today another of those signs of summer arrived - I heard my first cicada!

But even with all those signs of summer, our wet spring still has Canberra the most glorious shades of green. The city mowers are working like crazy trying to keep up, but in the unmown patches wildflowers like Canberra Royal Bluebells have popped up. I can't remember the city looking so wonderful for years.