Equinox at the door

The September Equinox arrived in New Zealand at 6:19am this morning. Leo and I were still asleep at the time, although he waits for me to stir, and never tries to wake me up. He’s a good boy. At any rate, it’s now universally accepted to be Spring here—even by certain people who insist that seasons can only begin on equinoxes and solstices. Leo, of course, couldn’t care less about such things.

Spring is a season of change—although, one way or another, all seasons are. Nevertheless, there are some things that are unique to Spring, like pollen, for example. I never used to be bothered by pollen, but over the past decade or so I’ve been affected more and more, and it’s been particularly bad for me this year. Add to that the rainy and awful Spring weather New Zealand can get this time of year, and, well, it’s not ideal. Still, none of that lasts forever, right?

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been busy planning out exactly what I want to get done to the house, and the order it needs to happen, because some things can’t happen until other things are finished. As it happens, the Waikato Home and Garden Show is coming up, and it may be a good opportunity to organise quotes for various things, especially because there are often “show specials” to reduce the costs a bit.

While there’s a lot of work that I need to organise others to do, there’s still a lot I can do in the meantime, like cleaning. Rearranging the living area will mean moving heavy furniture that's been in the same spot since I moved into the this house more than five and a half years ago, and those areas will need some cleaning. I also want to clean the carpets using the cleaner I bought back in 2022. So, technically, this means I’ll be doing a major “spring cleaning” of the house, though because all of the work on the house will be sone in phases, some of that cleaning may (will?) extend into summer.

So, no matter how one determines the start of such things, it’s definitely Spring in the Southern Hemisphere. It also means summer in the Southern Hemisphere is officially closer, and, to me, that’s a very good thing, indeed.

The December Solstice arrives in New Zealand at 4:03pm on December 22, 2025.