Where's the sunscreen?

As much as I hate starting a sentence with a cliché, spring is in the air in Melbourne. Last weekend we had our first taste of warmer temperatures this spring. It made it up thirty three degrees centigrade and, well, it was kind of sweaty to be honest. The hum of wall mounted air conditioning units permeated the quiet of the suburban streets, and nothing much stirred – other than some of the thirstier suburbanites on their way to that great Aussie institution, the bottle shop*, to stock up with another slab or two of Victoria Bitter.

I find people can be separated into two types during the hotter part of the day, those who are sensible and retire inside to shelter from the raging UV, and those who go to the beach in order to seek it. Those who go to the beach are quite mad.

You can only know what it is like to be under the midday summer sun in Australia if you experience it personally. The UV rays can be felt intensely the second you expose any naked skin, you can almost feel the thousand of skin cells cooking, it’s like you were standing in a large microwave oven…

Perhaps my discomfort in these conditions stems from the fact I posses fair English skin, the type that turns angrily red in the time it takes to get from the house to the car or vice versa. I am cursed here in Australia with the inability to spend time outside between the months of October and May. Of course I can apply sunscreen, but that’s a bit of a pain, I mean you have to reapply every five minutes as that is all it takes to sweat off what you have just put on. Perhaps I too easily become the stereotypical ‘Whinging Pom’ but I just don’t understand how so many of the born and bred Aussies, complete with fair hair and, albeit often leather like, skin can wonder about apparently unperturbed by the suns vicious rays – often they can be seen not even wearing sun glasses, I am completely blinded on the brighter days - there goes the whinging Pom again. I had better shut up and continue my slow assimilation process into Australian society – but something tells me I will always stick out like a sore thumb, maybe it’s the sunburn…

*For the benefit of international readers, the bottle shop is Australia’s version of the British off license or American liquor store. The most interesting aspect of the Aussie bottle shop in my opinion is the fact that many provide drive through facilities, allowing the customer to remain in the drivers seat and buy their beer/wine/various pre-mixed drinks.