Four Seasons in One Melbourne Day

I packed for spring. By lunch I needed a parka, sunglasses and an umbrella.

Everybody warned me. "Four seasons in one day," they said, the way people in New Orleans say "hurricane season," with a shrug and a little pride. I nodded. I did not believe them. I left the hotel in a sundress. Winter arrived at nine, on the steps of the State Library Victoria, as a wind straight off Antarctica. I fled inside to the domed reading room, an octagon of green lamps and silent students, and decided I would live there now.

Spring came back at eleven. I walked through the Carlton Gardens past the Royal Exhibition Building, a wedding cake of a building, with blossom falling and the sun out like nothing had happened. Lunch was laksa at Kedai Hujan on Swanston Street, so spicy it constituted a fifth season.

Then the rain. Proper rain, sideways. I sheltered in the NGV International under its stained-glass ceiling, lying on the floor with a dozen other refugees, staring up at the colours. Best seat in town.

By five it was summer again. I walked through the Royal Botanic Gardens in sunshine, steaming gently, and finished at Bar Deux Parapluies on Southbank with a glass of Yarra Valley pinot. I bought an umbrella on the way home. It has not rained since.

Lived October 25, 2025.