Crisp

Yes, Pliny was right. I was looking at the mirror from my own point of view. We all do that. But we don't always imagine we're a spider. Today I'm not going to imagine anything. I'm just going to describe how in this hot weather everything is crisp.

Not cold and crisp, dry and crisp.

I will choose a particular street as an example. It may be Verdun Street, which is across Magill Road and three down from where we live.

Once, a man on a bicycle stopped and asked me for Verdun Street. I'd lived here for years but at that time I didn't know where it was. It wouldn't have mattered but he'd asked if I was a local and I had said yes, so it was embarrassing that I sent him off towards the hills.

So, let us say it is Verdun Street. Verdun Street is lined with trees and some of them are jacarandas. The jacarandas are all afroth with purple saxaphone-shaped flowers which are already dropping in the heat. When they reach the pavement they shrivel and crisp up.

You walk on them and crackle like a king.