When the British arrived in what they would call Port Jackson but what the locals would call Gadigal, in 1788, they stuck a flag in the ground and from that time forth English would be the de facto language of whatever country would follow. English is a slightly daft language, from a poxy little island chain off of Europe; it is a language which is perfectly capable of stealing words from everywhere and has done so, but the people who speak it still want to fit words and phrases applicable to that poxy little island chain, to other places in the world.
It should have been obvious by about January of 1790, that having a mere four words for the seasons was inadequate and diarists like Tench recorded that they went through about 10 different seasons. The local people as far as I can tell, had words for six identified seasons; which seems to suggest that as they had been living in the lands for a very long time, that they were more aware of the land and climate.
Indeed just like the all of the animals such as spiders, snakes, sharks, box jellyfish, and that poison thing in the shell that spikes you when you pick it up, even the soil which might contain asbestos, or the trees which drop their limbs when they get stressed, are all actively trying to kill you. This is because Australia is hard country on hard mode, and where the only people who could have ever lived here are all hard and/or sent here against their will.
Winter, Spring, Summer, and Autumn - why would anyone who has been here longer than two years think that that is even capable of even half-way describing what we have as seasons here. The animals are all on hard mode, the dirt is on hard mode, the original inhabitants are actually pretty hard, and the climate is definitely on hard mode.
The Eora and Dharug peoples were right. Four seasons is inadequate. I'll go on to say that six seasons is also inadequate. In fact, as someone who lives in this insane city by the harbour where the people are awful and the only thing they care about is property prices, that the number of seasons is actually thirteen or maybe more.
To wit:
1 - Winter
As someone who works in an accounting firm and who likes English football, I refuse to accept that the year begins in January. Years contain slashes and the year which we are currently in is 2023/24. The year very clearly begins on July 1.
Winter is that season in which frosts happen, where stepping outside is unpleasant, where working in the office chills your kidneys and where walking downstairs is like descending into a plunge pool.
2 - Fool's Spring
At some point in Winter, there will be a week where people will think that it is over. The coming of three days of 26 degrees is deliberately designed to lull people into thinking that the winter is over. Remember, nature itself actively hates you and will go so far as to mess with you psychologically.
Fool's Spring lasts just long enough to make people think that Winter is breaking until...
3 - Second Winter
Second Winter is worse than the first. Second winter invents mornings of low single degree temperatures, so you think that it is fine but it really is not. Second winter wants to make your fingertips scream with pain because of the cold and give you chilblains in your toes, so that way not only are you in pain but you small bad.
4 - Deception
This is not Spring either. Deception is a micro season around about the beginning of August in which there is a faint whiff of wattle on the breeze and you think that everything will be pleasant. As a season it is still too cold to be called Spring and it may include the awful period where it rains all the time, or not, depending on what is most inconvenient that year.
5 - The Pollening
The faint whiff of wattle is merely the opening act. The Pollening is a full on festival where all of the plants throw all of their sex cells into the air at the same time. If plants were people, then many would be arrested for indecent acts in public.
The problem is that you have to walk through the middle of nature's herbaceous horribleness. I have a highly designed immune system which was developed over many thousands of years to live in a peat bog in northern England; which means that as someone living in Sydney, The Pollening results in my immune system triggering off and sending lots of Histamine 1 to every where. Walking outside during The Pollening, is like chopping onions all the time.
6 - The Swooping
After all of the plants have had their fun, the next thing that follows is the arrival of Magpies and their nesting season. Different birds in Australia have different characters. Cockatoos are shrieking monsters. Galahs want to form committees. Rainbow Lorikeets are colourful vandals. Magpies are black and white terrorists who are actively trying to draw blood and will hurt you, merely because they can.
There aren't enough cricket bats in the world to deal with Magpies. Carrying sticks and painting eyes on the back of your bicycle helmet is pointless. The only rational decision is to give up. Magpies own the kosmos for a time. Is this a season though? Very yes.
7 - Spring
It is not until the seventh season of the year that we get perfection. For a very brief window, temperatures are perfect, the weather is perfect, footy is on the telly and the radio, cars go to Bathurst. Spring is ace.
8 - Summer
Summer is also ace. Summer is when the weather is still perfect but hotter. Temperatures head northwards of 30. The soundtrack of Summer is untold numbers of cicadas and Cricket on the radio. As Daylight Wasting time is in full swing, the evenings are such that you can go for a walk in the cool of the evening and watch as the skies are painted in millions of golds, yellows and reds. The soundtrack of Summer also includes Christmas songs in the shops, which will have begun in late October.
9 - Hades
Temperatures rise above 40. Going to sleep at night is impossible. The most sensible thing to do is lie on the floor. Depending on when Hades as a season arrives, Christmas Day may fall inside it. If so, then Christmas Day will be awful as not only will there be the pressure to have a good Christmas but there will always be some nutter who wants a roast dinner for Christmas. If Christmas is in the season of Hades then Boxing Day will be excellent as Boxing Day is designed for people to lie on the couch and watch cricket on the telly, and boats leave Sydney Harbour.
10 - Gehenna
Gehenna is like Hades as a season except that as an added bonus, everything is on fire. Roads might be cut. Great palls of smoke will hang in the air to the point where you can cut cubes of atmosphere out with a bread knife.
Queues at airports will be massive as everyone wants to go somewhere nice but planes will be grounded because they can not fly through smoke. Farmers will despair as their livestock suffers and maybe dies of heat stress. Right-wing media outlets will deny climate change even though the smoke is so thick that from their cramped little commentary boxes in the city, they can't see the Gladesville Bridge. The sun is red; even at noon day. Roads begin to melt in the heat but that's okay if property prices keep on going up.
11 - False Autmumn
For no reason at all, there will be a polar blast from below roaring forties. Temperatures will plunge to the mid teens and everyone will think that winter has arrived, except that it hasn't. For waiting around the corner is...
12 - Abaddon
By this time of year, Summer is gone but things are still on fire. There may be the opportunity for cyclones, floods, or as we saw in 2022, a virus. This is a bit like a second Gehenna except that it may be marginally cooler.
Cricket season ends. The newness of a school year has worn off and all we are left with is the drudgery and curse of work. It is this time of year when people realise that they have not done their tax returns, or when courts will start testing cases, or when people realise that the end of the financial year is not that far away. Apart from everything being on fire, Abaddon is the season when people are frumpy, grumpy, and harumphhy. Nobody is happy.
13 - Autumn
Autumn is almost like upside-down Spring. Days are getting shorter, Daylight Savings is corrected. Temperatures are generally too cold to be perfect but the skies and some trees will be painted in a kaleidscope of colour.
Autumn contains exactly one day of perfection which will arrive unannounced and then leave again. It is impossible to tell when this one day will be and by the time you have realised that it has happened, it will be over.
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The really weird thing about the seasons in Sydney, is that they can be deleted without warning. The problem with trying to compartmentalise the year into four seasons is that it is inadequate. The problem with nature is that it is not sentient and therefore doesn't even follow any kind of system which we try and impose upon it.
There might be thirteen seasons in one year, or two. One thing is for certain, there are not four seasons in the year unless there are. Other parts of Australia such as Melbourne, may even get four or five seasons in one day.
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