It’s July 6th today, past the shortest day of the year. How does the saying go “As the days lengthen the cold strengthens”? We had to cancel Louisa’s Walk yesterday (quite rare for us). The forecast temperature was only 9 degrees. I can do cold, I can do light rain but add in a howling gale and I’m out of there! As I looked out of my window in the pleasant beachside suburb of Blackmans Bay, at 9.30 yesterday morning, we had all three and the trees were bent double. Now, we like Louisa’s Walk to be memorable but for all the right reasons and getting soaking wet and frozen to the bone is not a good memory! We reluctantly cancelled our bookings for the day and, apart from one lady who was leaving that afternoon were able to re-schedule people onto other performances.
Today dawned sunny and clear and we had 13 booked on for our eleven o’clock performance. We rugged up extra well as, despite the sunshine, it was still only forecast to be 9 degrees again. As we approached Hobart however and turned the corner to head up to the Cascades, the sky looked ominous and the mountain was shrouded in snow cloud. We had disappointed people yesterday though and we weren’t about to do it again. Several audience members were already waiting for us outside the iconic Cascade Brewery building. I was glad to see beanies, scarves and gloves! Before long, all thirteen people had arrived and still the mountain lowered and threatened snow. “We’re either all incredibly brave or incredibly mad” Louisa quipped as she handed out umbrellas and off we went into another of our popular performances, quite sure we were in for a soaking.
Just under two hours later, hardly a drop of rain had fallen, though there was some light sleet just as we entered Yard One of the Female Factory. The sun had shone just about non-stop and no-one looked remotely cold. It was a great show and a great audience. Comments in our guest book ranged from “Awesome” to “Fantastic”. You never can tell what Hobart’s weather will do.
A Snow Shrouded Mount Wellington
