From tropical Queensland to Parisian winter

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I hate it when the leaves fall off the trees and the temperatures go down and the days grow shorter. I’m not made for the Parisian winter. I was born and bred in the tropics.

I don’t think I’ll ever get used to having to wear shoes every day for months on end instead of going barefoot. And I can remember knitting and wearing my first pair of gloves when I was at uni in North Queensland. It certainly wasn’t cold enough for the thick pullover I knitted to go with them. Or even for the gloves for that matter. It’s so funny when I go back there during the winter and everybody complains that it’s “freezing”. But it’s really only because they leave the windows open all the time, even when it’s 10°C outside. Not that it oftens gets that cold. So I suggest, “how about you close the windows?” “Close the windows? We’ll suffocate! You have to have fresh air mate!” You can’t close a lot of the windows anyway. Most of them seem to be stuck open.

Now, that’s not what happens in Paris, I can tell you. I have to make this big effort during winter to open the windows for a quarter of an hour every day to let the fresh air in. But to do so, you have to turn the heating off because otherwise the thermostat goes crazy trying to increase the temperature to make up for the genuinely freezing air that pours in. If I forget to do it after I first get up, I have to find a strategic moment during the day when I don’t mind being cold for an hour afterwards. That is one of the reasons why I don’t like winter.

The next one is having to get up when it’s still pitch black outside. It means having the light on half the day because not only does it get light late, forcing you to stay in bed in the morning, but it gets dark again by 5 o’clock. You read about these people who get depressed if you don’t have enough light. Well, I think I’m one of them. I don’t ever remember getting up in the dark at home in Townsville and I certainly didn’t come home from school in the dark. I used to feel so sorry for my kids when they were at school here.

But the worst is having to get dressed and undressed every time you set foot outside. You have to put on  your socks and boots and a jumper or a jacket, then a coat and a scarf and a hat and your rabbit-lined gloves because they’re the only ones that stop your fingers going numb with the cold. I was so pleased when I found my first pair. They are soft and silky and WARM.  Of course, there is no way you can keep them for more than a couple of winters. One inevitably escapes when you’re on the metro or in a restaurant or even sometimes in the street because you can’t use an iPhone with gloves on. Well, I can’t anyway. And then the only shops that sell them in Paris must have millionnaires for customers. But I finally found an Italian website that keeps me stocked.

I have Australian friends that actually LIKE coming here in the winter. They say it’s “welcome relief from the heat”. I do not understand them.

It’s amazing how you can’t even remember what being hot is like in the dead of winter.

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19 thoughts on “From tropical Queensland to Parisian winter”

  1. Hi Fraussie, I live in Brisbane now, after growing up in Townsville, and we live in an old family home, so we still never close the kitchen window (I don’t think it will close properly) and the back door is open all day too (even when we do get one or two really cold days). We had a couple of days last week when is was 5°C in the morning and only got up to 16°C during the day. Winter is a really lovely time here. Lyn

    1. Goodness, I didn’t realise the temperature could go down to 5°C in Brisbane! When I used to stay in my godmother’s place in Brisbane, you couldn’t shut the bedroom windows either!

  2. I lived in California from age 10, so I don’t think I’ll ever get used to piling all these clothes on. It feels absolutely victorian/burka to cover up from head to toe just to leave the house. but instead of feeling womanly/protected, I feel like the kid from A Christmas Story, who can’t get up after falling down b/c he has so many puffy layers.

    The day I have to put socks on in October/November is one of the most depressing days of the year, because I know after that it’s just more and more layers until I forget what my skin looks like.

  3. Hi Rosemary,

    I am a born and bred Townsvillite born in 1955. I wondered if I may have known you at school. I went to Hermit Park Primary and Pimlico High. I am glad I found your blog (through your interview on Frugal First Class Travel with Jo). I met Jo in Istanbul last year over a Turkish Village breakfast with some other travel bloggers. Isn’t it a small world?

    1. It certainly is a small world! However, I went to Saint Margaret Mary’s throughout my schooling. My nephew went to Pimlico though – but a lot later! Jo and I met up when she was in Paris a year or so ago. Unfortunately, I missed her the last time.

  4. Hi Rosemary,

    I arrived at your site by accident while searching the internet for information regarding Abu Simbel which I visited last year (October). I was amazed to find a fellow Townsvillian so far from home (I now live in Adelaide), and one who is looking forward to retirement in 2020, just like myself (thus enabling my lust for travel to be sated). I find it amazing when one comes across people from your home city by accident. When visiting Florence and waiting in the queue to gaze upon David I was talking to an American behind me. When it came around to saying where I was from and I stated Townsville, his reply was “Hey, I was born there.” It happens that he lived in Gulliver, not more than about a kilometre from where our family house was in Mundingburra. Small world indeed.

  5. Hi there!

    I had a son born is Kirwin in 1999. 15 yrs later his sister loved marine science and moved to North ward to attend uni. He moved a year later and they still are living in the Ville. My partner and I now live out in Mt Isa on the lake called Moondarra. I’m wanting to take my two younger sons to Paris to live for 6 mths to explore Europe. My grandmother was born is Holland as was my father. I just feel I need to visit before I am too old and frail to travel. Covid has put a spammer in the works but. 😔 I’ll keep following this blog as its very nice to read an Australians perspective on world travels. All the best.

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