Day-ends

While the northern part of the world is dreaming of a anything-but-white Christmas, facing travel delays and getting stuck in snowdrifts, us southern lot are sweltering.  How sweltering?  This sweltering - that's a realtime graph of the temp at one of our high sites nearby.  Add in the occasional gale-force south-easter to vary things, and summer is well under way.

However, it's making work very difficult.  We're not slowing down or stopping over the festive season.  Quite a few folk are getting internet or an e-waste clear-out for Christmas, keeping us on the hop, outdoors, generally in the blazing sun.

The middle of the day is literal hell.  Too hot to be on a roof, too hot even to eat.  So we find ourselves working day-ends.  Starting early (it's light at 4:30 if you're up then), ending late.

Right now the boys are 8 floors up on a building next to the beach, adjusting antennas - at 6 in the evening.  It's 37.5 C outside my front door, only barely cooler that high up.  The appointment they had for the middle of the day has been put off until early tomorrow morning before the heat sets in.  I braved an hour outside in the sun before putting off my work until the tools cooled down enough to handle and the shade had moved across this afternoon.

We're doing admin and inside jobs while the sun blazes overhead or when things cool down after 10 at night.  We're attempting to sleep somewhere between midnight and 5 before the light and heat set in once more.

We're living in the day-ends with the fan on - it's the only way to survive.

I hear rumours of rain tomorrow though.  If it turns up, it's going to be awesome.  Even if we have to work in it.