Winter greys, under wraps and braving it

It appears to me that winter greys is more appropriate than winter blues. Blue skies in winter in Melboure is almost non-existent. Needless to say, I am not enjoying the fourteen and a half hours of darkness, bone chilling wind, near freezing temperatures and wet wet wet days. Yes, I know this is not Mongolia where one might call it down right balmy, but….. I am from Malaysia!

Our bedroom windows has a beautiful view of …………………………condensation.

condensation on my bedroom window

Now, what is condensation? Well… apparently…. water condensing on the inside of windows during winter, is the result of those glass surfaces’ temperature cooling below the dewpoint of the air which is in contact with them. That is how I am greeted each morning, with beautiful condensation.

Just to drive home a point, whilst I turned the photo above to black and white, the two below are in full colour.

Brrrrrrr

More Brrrrrrr

Oh, I was quite amazed that my writing stayed on the window from morning well into the night. Erm, my limited science tells me that it didn’t warm up enough for the water droplets to evaporate.

I am under wraps all the time, I haven’t seen my own legs for a while now! They are now a mystery even to me. In fact, even shopping is hard. You didn’t think you would ever hear me say that, huh. Why? Well, trying clothes on is hard with the number of layers I have to take off, not counting my boots! Let’s not start about trying on undergarments.

Getting rugged up

Well… I know I am making it sound very dreary. But it is! hehehehehehe No, no seriously, we do see some snippets of sunshine and blue skies. You have to be quick or it is gone. Yesterday was appreciated, I think the sunshine stayed around for the whole day.

Make hay while the sun shines

Occasionally I see my shadow

All the sunshine yesterday is short lived, it was grey again today. This is the old Boyd Girls School which has been refurbished to be a new community centre, due to be opened tomorrow. It is just around the corner from our apartment, Chen and I went around to take some photos. We love the bow! But as you can see, nothing but grey in the sky.

Wrapped up in a bow

All of that said though, I think we have done quite well. We have braved the cold several times now. We have gone running after dark, well in my case, it is probably more appropriate to call it shuffling. But shuffle I did! Last sunday after not having exercised for a few days we were determined to be guilt free for dinner. So we went despite the unpromising weather, just a bit before dark. This next photo is at the start of the run, about half a km from home, when it had just started drizzling. We waited and contemplated whether to continue or head on home. But the rain eased and so we continued.

Running in winter

Towards the end of our track, the rain got fairly heavy (for Melbourne). This is us again, sheltering under the same bridge that we did at the start.

Wet and cold and out of breath (and somehow with a bulging tummy), sheltering from the rain

This was last weekend’s weather forecast.

Last week’s weather forecast

And…. this is this weekend’s weather forecast. Hahahahahahaha I see a full sun, though the temperatures are still low. Very low actually, I draw your attention to App temp: -1.0° which stands for apparent temperature, but I am hopeful. There may be sunny days ahead.

This weekend’s weather forecast

6 responses to “Winter greys, under wraps and braving it”

  1. Chen Chen

    Such beautiful photos of you, I wonder who took them?? 🙂
    It’s so good to see the sun today.

  2. Felix

    Pei,

    Nice photos. 🙂

    It seems a bit odd to get condensation inside your window panes. I can’t remember that happening at all. You may want to find out what is causing the additional moisture.

  3. Felix

    Pei,

    I think some ventilation may help in your case. Yeah, I know the cold but water ponding at the bottom isn’t good. What you’d want to avoid is mildew or moulds growing inside your apartment. Not too good for health and photographic equipment.

    Try this,

    http://www.velfac.co.uk/velfac-uk/download.nsf/web_all/E5BFECAAB6B9C988C12576C5005A23C1/$file/Condensation%20on%20Windows.pdf

  4. Lee Low

    Even though it is cold, must still “air” the place by keeping a window open, if possible, all the time. If not, at the “warmest” part of the cold day ie late morning to mid afternoon….

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