There’s a lovely shaded enclosure at street level just under the museum proper and it’s recently been converted into a little outdoor cafe.

It was so lovely and cool in the shade.  I think the freshly watered plants helped with the cool factor – in both senses of the word.

I was there too early for the ice cream bicycle to be pressed into service, maybe next time.

It wasn’t as noisy as I thought it would be sitting outside on William Street on a weekday morning.  Perhaps the trees are a sort of natural noise buffer and perhaps the roof and glass awnings above me have some kind noise reduction feature to them.  It’s such a lovely spot that I hope the garden cafe stays where it is all year round.

And the heat still didn’t get to me even when I had to cross the road again to wait at the bus stop for my ride home.  Sharing a moment with George as he has first coffee of the day tends to have that effect on a girl…

This looks wacky but the internet never lies.  I haven’t had it in me to get air conditioning sorted for the house and now it’s a bit late.  Solution?  A sort of eco / budget friendly arrangement of a damp towel hung a safe distance in front of a fan.  It really does work.

There’s also a more complex system of using an esky with a hole cut out and filled with ice somewhere on the internet if you’re interested….

Where, miraculously, it feels nothing like the 36C it was at 7pm, according to the weather app on my phone.  I can’t quite believe it myself that it’s taken until my second summer here to discover this hidden gem.  Redleaf Beach is a few steep sets of stairs down from New South Head Road and if you have trouble finding it from a phone map, just look out for the sudden traffic snarl as cars try to enter the 8 spot car park at the top of the stairs.  The pool itself is now called the Murray Rose pool and is about 60 by 90 metres in size.  There are a couple of pontoons you can jump off or lounge on in the water and a wrap around pier / walk way that I am sure I will get to walk on one day…

Preschooler SSG was in a golden sanded heaven on the beach.

He raced up and down the beach with his friends, carted water to make mud pies on the beach and forgot he was a bit shorter than the older children and adults as he tried to follow them further out into the water.

As for me?  Just being in the water and feeling the sand under my feet and between my toes was all I needed as I watched the sun set and felt the temperature drop just a bit.  I’ll be the first to confess that I’m not a beach person but I think this heat wave has just converted me.

We went home in much better spirits than if we’d spent the evening at home trying to keep cool by being still and quiet but at the same time being restless on account of it still being daylight outside.  There’s a small beach worth of sand sprinkled over the all the floorboards in the kitchen as I type this  but I’m in no hurry to sweep it all away.  Not just because I’m a bit lazy about stuff like this in the heat but because feeling the gritty granules under my feet brings me back to the beach and the best things about these sweltering summer days in Sydney.