Hot pants or climate controlled, Sir?

I have just walked back into the house as dusk fell and was greeted by a chorus of frogs, croaking invisibly from within the ferns by the front door and now as I sit at the computer I am being divebombed by ‘Christmas Beetles’ which surprise, surprise appear at this time of year and are attracted by the light. In the early morning as I drive off to the early morning masochistic slot of boot camp I pass a group of sulphur crested cockatoos swinging from the phone lines and preening their immaculately white and yellow plumage. All these things, frogs, insects and birds are now in many ways background to my life here rather than the initial out of the ordinary experience, but I still notice them everyday with pleasure. Another joy of Australia at the moment is the mangoes that have just come into season. Our local greengrocer sells them by the crate and somehow the word ‘gorge’ seems particularly appropriate when faced with a fresh mango for breakfast.

I think the excitement must have gone to my head. I completely failed to mention in my last blog the Scots triumph over the Australian Wallabies Rugby Team. As the daughter of a fiercely loyal Scotland supporter I always approach Scotland’s games in a spirit of cautious optimism and am accustomed to mentally trudging home thinking “never mind there is always a next time”. So not only is it very gratifying to win a match but also particularly satisfying to have beaten Australia, land of the sports mad, (for the first time since 1982). The weather is sadly far too hot for me to appear in public in my Scotland rugby shirt, although I did think of stuffing the long suffering dog into it on Sunday morning for a triumphant outing.

My father has just sent me a couple of articles from the UK press claiming that most men’s pants are bought by wives and mothers. I have to raise my hand and plead guilty – normally I let Simon sort out his underwear himself but on my recent quick trip to the UK I caved and said I would try and get him some new pants. In order to forestall the inevitable marital about ‘these aren’t the right ones,” I took the precaution of stuffing a pair of his pants in my handbag, causing some mirth during the security search at Singapore. I was completely flummoxed though when I got to the till at M&S (sorry, yes we fit another sad statistic, those not even living in the country who STILL buy their underwear from M&S) and the lady declared that the pack of men’s undies I was clutching was not identical to the ones from the handbag. Apparently they were “COOL and FRESH” as opposed to the original “CLIMATE CONTROL”. Excuse my ignorance, or should that be cynicism but cool and fresh and climate control are words that I would apply to lettuce not to underwear. I have never in my life bought a pair of pants for climate control reasons – I also fail to see the difference between the two – surely the only type of climate one was trying to create around one’s nether regions would be cool and fresh – can’t see hot and sticky is going to work as an alternative.