Ch-ch-ch-ch-changeeees

I've  never been a fan of Autumn. As a child born in South Africa and raised in England I decided that my natural birth right was to live in a place that is always hot, despite being fully British and incredibly white.

Australia did not seem to have an Autumn, and even in places where it sort of did (South) we missed it. We first hit Adelaide when it was cold (July, UGH), and just decided to immediately drive 5000km away to where it was warm, and that sort of weather followed us for the entire 8 months we spent in the country. Not staying in one place for very long meant that we didn't really sense a change in the seasons apart from when we were in Melbourne and it went from unbearably hot (42) to just hot (35), and then to our shock we had to start wearing long sleeves. In the far north there is a wet season, that we mercifully missed, and we also managed to miss cyclone season.
As a Brit, this kind of climate is most noticeable when you talk about the weather, which of course is our national past time. In the UK, talking about the weather is a huge deal, and it can go from a simple meteorological observation to a full on metaphor for your entire miserable existence. A chat about weather is the default setting for any British person in any social situation. You may be the most awkward human in existence, but if you are truly British you can have an entire conversation about the weather (and also drink tea or at least pretend to like it.) Australia does not do this. A weather conversation here (depending on the season) generally goes along the lines of "Hot enough for ya, Pom?" or "There's a cyclone coming. Bring it on, c***s!"

New Zealand, on the other hand, does have autumn, and a glorious one at that. It made me remember that this is actually a pretty nice time of year (when its not raining) and the smells of wet grass, rotting vegetation and wood fires were actually something I had missed. Its also made me realise that I am woefully underprepared to dress warmly, as most of the clothes I now own are the bogan uniform of shorts, singlets and thongs (that's flip flops to you, poms). We've had to resupply our wardrobe courtesy of some charity shops so I've not got some mighty fine old man jumpers and a nice fleecy hat that only looks a little bit stupid. Can't wait for winter.