“That’s the smell of new things,” Maggie said. “In Australia, we don’t get a gentle spring. We get a sprint. Everything has to happen fast—the flowers, the storms, the baby animals. Because summer is just around the corner, and it’s a beast. So we enjoy this while we can.”
“It’s just spring having a tantrum,” she said. “It’ll be over in ten minutes.” spring time in australia
Spring in Australia doesn’t tiptoe in like an English visitor. It arrives like a surfer catching a break—all at once, bright and reckless. Within a week, the paddocks that had been brown and hard as biscuit were suddenly dotted with a thousand different greens. The ironbark trees, which had stood skeletal against the grey winter sky, began to fizz with new leaves. And the noise! The magpies were warbling their territorial, caroling songs at 4:30 in the morning, and the raucous screech of the sulphur-crested cockatoos meant they were stripping the almond tree in the back garden. “That’s the smell of new things,” Maggie said
Later, as dusk settled—a long, golden dusk that didn’t belong to any other season—Maggie and Lila sat on the veranda. The last of the kangaroos were hopping back into the bush, their joeys’ heads poking out of pouches. The air was cool again, but not cold. It was the cool of a perfect, forgiving evening. Everything has to happen fast—the flowers, the storms,
Maggie’s granddaughter, Lila, arrived from Melbourne for the school holidays. To Lila, spring in the country was a chaotic, glorious explosion. The first afternoon, she ran inside with a shoe full of mud and a handful of “frogs”—actually pink and white patrols of clover flowers.