the last warm night of summer

When the days are the shortest, the nights are the coldest

If what goes around, comes around; gravity usually is playing a part.  Not like living on the ISS for a year: a sunrise every 90 minutes, another season six hundred kilometers below your feet every twenty minutes. No chance to ring out for a pizza.

the frost is the sharpest, the year is the oldest

As June approaches, our air conditioner is somewhat less employed, and the mornings, although nippy-ish, haven't provided any incentive to cycle in reverse as yet.  Orion runs shotgun on the setting sun, while Mars and Saturn brighten in the fading east as a crown on the scorpion.  The full moon comes and goes like a spinning coin in the firelight, and life goes on; our allotted sum of breathing moments wanes and fades away.

then polish your whiskers and tidy your nest

These old grey whiskers don't need polishing, but a shave now and then is as civilized as it gets. The doctor in the house has been nest tidying recently - she must be between Sir Jackie and Mr Ickx on a personal journey to unravel the mysteries of one formula or another.  Her output is very much appreciated by many F1 enthusists worldwide.

and dress in your finest and richest and best

I love the verdant attitude here of nature in this season.  Elsewhere (south wise) the environmental feeling is depressingly autumnal, the crisp mornings bitter with sharp frost, the wind searching and uncomfortable, the night sky studded with sharp cold diamonds. Our northern rivers region is vaguely subtropical and that's the way we like it. The trial that is summer's finest stays keen enough in the memory so we always enjoy the mildness of May, the joy of June and July, and early spring's colourful touch.

for winter has bought you the worst it can bring

We'll have to travel some two thousand kilometers South to feel the worst Australia can bring. Holiday planning these last several decades often throws up the quandry of destination. UK, France, US, NZ... never Tasmania.  This year we're doing the patriotic thing.

and now it will give you the promise of spring!

One thing is sure.  After a few weeks in Tassie, the remainder of the northern rivers winter will feel positively summery. We may even skip spring altogether!