Actually, I’m just stranded. At Sydney Domestic Airport.

There are storms in Victoria and Queensland, but not Sydney.

Irony is a bit of a tool, frankly.

All else is good. Yes, including Script Frenzy. I’m at a healthy 15 pages – which frees up my weekend for friends, food and funnies in Melbourne… where I should be right now!

Sometimes you just don’t know the power of your own actions.

About once a month I write a column in my local paper. It’s one of my reasons for writing a blog, actually – my random rants here are hacked down to 300 words, polished slightly and turned into “youth oriented” opinion pieces. Given the publication’s readership, “youth” means anyone under the age of 55.

These pieces are designed to be enjoyable, albeit forgetable, fluff. They’re about things like portable music, blogging (ooh, meta), and how running a business is like building with Lego – I’m hardly vying for a Walkley here.

I write them, I email them off and then eventually I see them in the paper accompanied by my photo, a reporter’s non-threatening vox pop, and ads of local Mahjong groups.

Then I forget about them. And so, I assume, does everyone else. Or, at least, that’s what I thought.

This letter was forwarded to me last week…

Dear Ms Daley,

Hi there, my name is xxxxxxx, I saw your picture and articles you write in the paper.

I am a solicitor aged 29 and single, and was wondering if you are single and if so, whether you like or are interested to catch up with me sometime to get to know eachother?

Please forgive me if this email comes as a surprise to you, and I look foreward to hearing from you.

Regards,
xxxxxxx

Had I known my writing would be read like a personals ad, I might not have mentioned the Lego…

Sydneysiders take note: If you were lucky enough to be outside today, or have a window seat to the weather, I hope you took a damn good look.

It was glorious.

Sitting in the park at lunchtime, I absorbed the precious warmth like a sunshine sponge. I felt blessed by whichever god is in charge of distributing Vitamin D.

But, we’re told, that the next couple of days will hold a maximum of 13C each – and that’s not even counting the inevitable city wind-chill. This displeases me greatly.

There are few things I find more distracting and soul-destroying than the cold. The wind howls, the rain pelts down, and the sun gets incapacitated by cumulonimbus mushroom clouds that herald the apocalypse. And no matter how many layers I wear – and drag around with me – it makes no difference. I want to die.

No wonder Russian literature is so miserable. I’d be Emo too if it were -30C.

Here’s a secret I’ll share between you, me, and the half-dozen webspiders that may trawl over this humble page.

I resent it when people say “I love winter” or “I enjoy the cold”.

I resent it quietly, and only fleetingly, but I do resent it for a moment. My resentment arises out of fear, truth be told. If these people actually enjoy the constant drudgery of lint-balling scarves and inside-out umbrellas, of office sniffles on high-rotation and unyielding darkness at 5pm, who knows what other sadistic pleasures they might promote? Kicking puppies? Steel-wool woven beanies for infants? McLeod’s Daughters?

From the “we have no idea” Sydney version to the “freeze-to-death-in-a-blackout” Montreal equivalent, cold weather is an unholy horror.

So if you like it, I don’t wanna know.

And I especially don’t want to know if you think, “We get a rough deal in Sydney – only four weeks of real cold!”

Sure and WWII was only six years, pregnancy is only nine months, and Men in Black 2 was only 88 minutes.

Now, which god do I have to bribe to keep away the cold fronts?