Upside Down Under

A couple of days ago an anonymous commenter left the following comment on my Vintage Cough Remedies post from 2007:

"It was certainly interesting for me to read this post. Thank you for it. I like such themes and anything connected to them. BTW, why don't you change design :)."

At first I felt slightly bemused. Does this reader think my blog design is so awful that I need to change my blog design, and as soon as possible?

Then I realised that there is a more likely explanation. My summery looking blog with its beach theme looks like it is six months out of date as it's the middle of winter, right? It looks like I have been too absent-minded or lazy to change my blog design to match the seasons.

Except of course that it is midsummer here in the Southern Hemisphere. And it's extremely hot. Therefore, a beach theme is entirely appropriate.

We in the Southern Hemisphere are used to Northern Hemisphere seasons being considered the norm. After all, just about every Christmas film we ever see either shows a white Christmas or is dreaming of one. Meanwhile, we eat cold Christmas turkey and prawns on the beach.

Yet although our seasons may seem odd, they do exist. We celebrate Valentine's day in summer and Easter in the autumn. Halloween, which is only just starting to take off as a celebration here, occurs late in spring. And Christmas, of course, arrives just in time for the summer solstice.

By the way, I stole the title of this post from my friend Ben's new blog Upside Down Under. Married to my dear friend Megs, they lived in Seattle for the first ten years of their marriage but have recently migrated to Melbourne, Australia to be near Megan's family. Ben's blog is about the strangeness of adjusting to a new country that is in some ways very similar to the United States, yet in many ways so very, very different.