“Oh you should see it, she told me with two hands clasp together in front of her chest and eyes wide with excitement. New England and the White Mountains in the summertime is just so beautiful.”
This was part of Tommo’s pitch as we locked in our plans to leave Australia and move to somewhere in New England. In all my visits to the US and New England it was true, I had never seen her in the summertime. Always in those nondescript times of year. No longer fall but not yet winter. No longer winter but not yet spring kind of months. Always echoing the cold of winter with grey skies, brown grass and leafless trees. Of course I was curious, maybe even a wee bit excited for the new adventure. Beyond summer I was even excited for winter and to see falling snow and a white Christmas for the first time in my life ever.
Now anyone who knows the northern US and New England specifically would see through my wife’s pitch of a beautiful New England summertime and its Anne of Green Gables painted eternal bliss. Lacking were a few simple meteorological nuances that any sun kissed Australian looking to follow my lead should probably know. Have you ever wanted to visit Siberia… well the winters in the northeast are essentially the same, yay! Don’t like spring? well not to worry, in northern New England did you know it doesn’t exist, just a couple of weeks in May and you can move straight into summer, phew! And summer, well that equates to a only 10 weeks, maybe even less if your lucky before the first yellow hue appears in the landscape and leaves begin to turn and your soul slowly begins to wither on its journey to January.
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