Heat, high humidity, thunderstorms in the afternoon, mosquitos buzzing at night… Where are we?

Nope, not the tropics. We’re still here, where Summer’s supposed to be hot and dry.

The weather forecast at the weekend was so good (‘good’ = rain), that I planted some Wild Iris (Dietes iridoides). I was intending to leave them in their pots till Autumn, when rain can usually be guaranteed to help them establish. But with one low pressure system after another sweeping down from the north and plenty of warmth in the soil, this seems an ideal time to plant.

Usually, planting anything at this time of year would be madness. Searing heat and bone-dry soil would reduce plants to shrivelled wrecks within a day or two. Usually.

But it seems the weather down here this Summer is anything but usual. For a start we’ve had rain… storms even. Click here for more about them.

Sydney, on the other hand, is always a wet place in Summer. We’ve had reports from family up there that it’s been bucketing down lately, especially on the northern beaches.

During my visit to the Emerald City in December, the media carried a report about the appearance of a cane toad in Narrabeen. The second to have been discovered in as many months, it’s thought to have hitched a ride from Queensland. It seems the pair felt right at home in Sydney’s tropical heat.

It’s anyone’s guess whether the tropics are migrating south – like the cane toads – or whether the excessive rainfall we’re receiving here is just a meterological anomaly (woo, that’s a mouthful).

While this muggy spell gives us the perfect excuse for languishing torpidly in the coolest spot we can find, it doesn’t exactly provide ideal conditions for a good night’s sleep.

Awaking tired and tetchy to another hot and humid day, I’ve read, can lead to a condition known as ‘mango madness’. It’s when the body overheats, causing the mind to snap over the slightest transgression. It’s the stuff of Somerset Maugham novels in which characters routinely ‘go troppo’.

Maugham’s the man who once famously said, ‘It was such a lovely day I thought it a pity to get up.’ I guess he’d had a restless night tossing and turning, sticky and sweating in an overheated bed. I know how he felt.

Now I must vacate this stifling room before another storm rolls in… and before I start going troppo.