So, how about that heat?

[st_aurafina]

Yeah, it's 42 degrees (107.6 for you Northerners) and there's a grass fire up the road. Life is rocking on in rural Australia.

I'm propping lilacsigil up with ice packs and icy poles. She's a hot little hamster right now. The air-conditioner isn't really cutting the mustard, though it's cooler in here than out there.

Hey, Aussies, what do you call one of these?


I grew up in Melbourne, and we always called them "frozens", as in "I'd really like a frozen." But the other day, when I said "Oh, we should get some frozens and put them in the freezer for the hot days" lilacsigil was very confused. Apparently in Gippsland, you call them by their proprietary name: Sunny Boy. I find these differences to be fascinating. Or maybe my brain has curdled in the heat. Tell me of your snow, people of the north. Tell me of the icicles and the frozen ponds and the need for woolly mittens.


In other news, Yuletide reveals are up!

I wrote The Infernal Celibacy Rededication (Or how Roxy decided she didn't need her groove back after all). (Check out my Roxy icon! The sum total of my creative effort in this heat!) I had so much fun reviewing canon for this fic - I even dug out the original comics to remind myself of certain aspects of Middleman history.

I also betaed lilacsigil's Famous Five fic, Anne and George of the Thirds. (Go read it, it's a glorious thing where Anne gets to be the competent one for a change.) lilacsigil did not have so much fun reviewing canon. We had a lot of conversations like this:

lilacsigil: Julian is such a prig!
Me (mishearing): Yes, Julian is an utter prick.
lilacsigil: That too.

If you have always thought Julian was a prick, go and read Anne and George of the Thirds. Julian isn't in it at all, and there are (not very) secret lesbians on the side.


Now, to get to work on fandom_stocking! *rubs hands together but not enough to make a spark*

ETA: Fire is out! That's really good news.

Comments

[ex_pippin880]

I don't think we have those over here.

[ex_pippin880]

One US friend was complaining about shovelling her car out of the snow and how she had to get up early and it was and awful and it's so cold and she hates it and I just kept going "snooooooooow :D" until eventually she realised that it doesn't snow here.

Then she immediately started looking at flight prices.

[st_aurafina]

OMG POOR YOU! They were 25c at the tuck shop when I was a kid. 25c of glorious ice in a weird tetrapak thingy.

[entwashian]

I am SO PLEASED you wrote that story.

On the one hand, I am surprised it was you, on the other hand, it doesn't surprise me at all that you wrote it.

[st_aurafina]

But what about the other other hand?

Thank you for your lovely comment, btw, it gave me much joy.

[vass]

We always called them Sunny Boys.

Ugh, weather.

[st_aurafina]

We're from the same area, sort of, right? Weird. Maybe it was just my school.

It's cooler outside than inside now, but when we went outside to water the tomatoes, we could smell the road melting. Ugh.

[lexicalcrow]

I don't think I've ever seen Sunny Boys in Perth. I do remember some sort of triangular/pyramidal fruity frozen thing of awesomeness, but I can't remember what they were called. I know I had a name for them, but it wasn't a Sunny Boy. The packaging was red and white in some sort of spirally geometric weird thing. IDEK. My memories are sketchy. It's been probably 15-20 years since I bought one? They might not exist anymore.

ETA: Freezas! That's what we had, not Sunny Boys. I actually googled that to see if I could remember what it was called. XD

[st_aurafina]

Oh, wow! Freezas! Maybe that's where we got the name from? I don't remember one with a red and white geometric pattern, though there was (supposedly) a lemonade one that I don't remember.

Nostalgia! I'm going to buy some tomorrow.

[shehasathree]

Glad to hear the fire's out.
Steve grew up in Oak Park (northern suburbs of Melbourne), and he calls them SunnyBoys and got excited a year or so ago when he saw them in the supermarket because they remind him of his childhood and he hadn't seen them for many years. I didn't know what they were, probably because we had homemade icypoles and frozen yogurts and weren't generally allowed shop-bought icypoles growing up.

[st_aurafina]

lilacsigil was the same: no sugar in her house! No shop-bought anything! But sometimes she managed to scrape up her 25c, and when she did, it was a Sunny Boy.

Oh, oh, I've just remembered: sometimes you'd open the package right up, and you'd get a Free! Which was basically the word 'free' printed on the inner foil. And you'd take your Free to the shop and get another frozen, for free! (I just asked lilacsigil what she called getting a free, and she said "Another Sunny Boy!" I'm starting to think I lived in the land of the literal or something.

[lizbee]

Those are Sunny Boys! I have a box in the freezer! Om nom nom.

[st_aurafina]

I'm going to get me a box tomorrow!

[tyger]

We never saw'm around all that much - much more likely to find icy poles - but yeah, sunny boys. I'm from Melbourne too, so! |D Linguistic diversity, gotta love it.

[st_aurafina]

I love it too! lilacsigil grew up calling lollies "chonks" which I find bizarre and hilarious.

[jesuswasbatman]

That sort of thing would be an "ice pop" in London.

[st_aurafina]

Oh, wow! I was in London when I was maybe twelve, and we saw an ice cream truck, and a little girl asked her mum if she could have an iced lolly, so I assumed it was the same thing. (Actually, now I think about it, she did get the kind with a wooden stick, which we'd call an icy pole.)

[elleth]

Snow, icicles, frozen ponds... I'd like some of that. It supposedly is winter here, but we're having 10°C and a weather warning for windstorms. I'm not seeing much of a difference to what supposedly was summer up here.

But glad the fire is out, at any rate. Be safe.

[st_aurafina]

*waaaaants* I would be happy with 10 degrees and no snow. I'm not picky. But I wish you snow! Lots of snow, but not too much snow.

[nixwilliams]

yep, we called them sunny boys (east gippsland), but they weren't that popular. more often we'd just have icy poles or those frozen sticks in plastic that people buy in bulk (same idea as a sunny boy).

[st_aurafina]

Mmm, I bought a boxful today. Sunny Boy! In my house!

[lonelywalker]

We have torrential rain here. Again. Yay for a desert climate?

Famous Five! I'm sure if I read the books now I'd realise they live in an alternate universe where Britain is populated largely by gypsies and circuses, and everyone solely drinks ginger beer. Somehow when I was a kid this didn't seem strange at all.

[st_aurafina]

Why do you have all the rain! This doesn't seem fair.

Famous Five is so twisted, under the cold harsh light of the twenty first century. And Yeah, I have the same feeling - how did I not see how vile Julian was? I remember a librarian asking me if I really wanted to read all those Famous Five books - apparently there were much more worthy books I could be reading in the seventies - and I thought she was obviously stupid. Why wouldn't I want to read about gypsies kidnapping children and loud nasty American smugglers?

[amatara]

It's warm here, too, for the time of year: 12 degrees today, which is just plain weird. For comparison: same time last year we had several inches of snow, and normal temperatures around here are considered to be around or just above freezing. If I didn't know better, I'd say autumn had only just arrived! Still, 42 degrees sounds brutal - you have my sympathies.

[st_aurafina]

Thank you! It's much cooler now.

[lurkingcat]

It's about 8 degrees where I am and we have freezing icy hail. I'd happily swap my weather for yours except for the fact that being outside in the hail is horrible and stings and I would not wish that on anyone :( Even the sheep looked unhappy when we stomped on past them and normally they just hang around placidly nomming on the grass regardless of the weather.

[st_aurafina]

Poor sheep! They do get so bedraggled and waterlogged when it's rainy.

Oh, but I'm jealous of your weather.

[medicalmouse]

I think in my part of the US those would just be called water ice (where water is pronounced "wooder", of course!). I don't think I've ever seen anything exactly like them, though - how do you eat them? Does the top corner tear off, or is there a stick I'm somehow missing (in which case they'd be considered a popsicle), or do you use a spoon? In any case, I hope you found lots and lots of them and that it cools off there soon!

[st_aurafina]

Lol 'wooder'. I love our accent variations - I love that you guys can't rhyme Ravenclaw and Gryffindor.

Um, you tear one whole edge open, and push the ice upwards, and eat it that way, though by the time you get to the bottom, it's all slushy and you drink it.

[smirnoffmule]

OMG, lilacsigil wrote Famous Five fic? *Falls over self in rush to read*

[st_aurafina]

Yes! It's lovely, and Julian isn't in it at all.

[onceamy]

South east Gippsland, and they are Sunny Boys! They're not as popular as icy poles or those...things in the plastic wrap. Paddlepops were big when I was a kid, too.

[st_aurafina]

Paddlepops were the Rolls Royce of icy poles for me. Well, no, the chocolate covered ones were the Rolls Royce - like Hearts - but only grown-ups could afford those. Paddlepops were what I bought when I was really flush with pocket money.

Oh, remember the bubble gum flavoured one? All swirly with rainbow colours? When it melted, it went grey.

[tree]

i thought of you yesterday when we were in melbourne to see geoffrey rush the melbourne theatre co's production of the importance of being earnest. ZOMG WALL OF HEAT. we walked out of the theatre around 9pm and i was like, WHY IS IT STILL SO HOT. AND BRIGHT. WHY. and then mum had to remind me about axial tilt and how it affects the number of hours of daylight &c. plus stupid daylight savings.

still, we had air-conditioning at the hotel, which was a novelty. when it's 40C at home we just sit in front of the fan and melt.

[st_aurafina]

You were in Melbourne! Were you there for the Spire Fire? Apparently it was epic. I'm glad the hotel had air conditioning, because it was just a miserable day.

Stupid daylight savings! I hate it so much. But how was Geoffrey Rush? I'm hoping he was Ruth Cracknell levels of awesome.

[fenellaevangela]

Oh my god, 42 degrees? That is ten degrees hotter than I have ever been. We had a frostbite warning this morning, and you know what? I'll take that over 42 degree weather. Wow.

But if you'd like to hear about snow . . . ? It was a bright, sunny day today with a low of -21, way too cold for slush or flurries. The snow is all hard-packed an crunchy, and there's solid ice on sidewalks, parking lots, the edges of the road. I had to wear long johns and two coats :-D

[st_aurafina]

- 21 is 20 degrees colder than I've ever been! Oh, it sounds wonderful. Crunchy snow! So nice!