Two Pommie Sheilas: Snow or scorcher, we’ll never be happy

As only they can, the British tabloids have been whipping the locals into a frigid frenzy over bitterly cold storms bringing with them the heaviest snowfalls the country has seen in a quarter of a century.

It will be Armageddon, they say — and, for some areas, for once they may be right. Travel becomes impossible, bathroom pipes freeze and crack and, inevitably, there will be broken bones for those unlucky enough to slip and fall on icy footpaths.

Meanwhile, here in Perth we’re ushering in autumn with a humid, some might say stifling, 32C. We really are living in the lucky country.

But you can bet that much time will be spent dissecting the summer statistics.

Even in Australia we’re obsessed with the weather.

I think you caught the climate-complaint bug from we Poms.

It doesn’t matter where you live, you can guarantee someone somewhere is unhappy with their lot — some will long for crisp, cold days while some like it hot.

In most cases they’ll find a way to cope as they chase the sun or reach for a blanket.

The real problem comes when you’re part of a couple, with one half hell-bent on controlling the temperature at the expense of their other half’s sanity.

When we lived in Blighty, my poor Aussie husband was always desperate to turn up the central heating (yep, we had those weird things called radiators on the walls, confounding almost every visitor from Down Under).

I would tell him testily, thinking of the power bill, that he should just put on another jumper. I’d later spot him on the couch wearing his ski jacket and still shivering.

If it was really cold he’d add a beanie and goggles.

But when we moved to Perth, the boot (or, in this case, thong) was firmly on the other foot, with me begging my husband to install air-conditioning so each summer I didn’t feel like Frozen’s Olaf come springtime.

In sweet revenge for my scrooge-like heating ways in the UK, I have been forced to spend years learning his complicated house-cooling ritual (that works not a jot, I tell you) of opening and closing a carefully co-ordinated sequence of windows, curtains and blinds at random (he swears scientifically tested) times of the day to “let the doctor in” just before sunset.

This summer, I finally flipped after I found myself begging UK friends for hints and tips from back home on how to stay cool.

The final straw was when I found myself heading to the supermarket each day for random items of food just so I could hang over the freezer section for 10 minutes.

That trick unfortunately led to several awkward encounters with shop staff asking if they could help me with my purchase of frozen peas as I had “been there a while”.

We finally purchased that wonderful reverse-cycle air-conditioning last month. I’ve been allowed to use it just three times since.

But revenge will be mine again this winter — I’ve already got long-johns on order.

Sadly, for my UK relatives and friends, I fear not even an extra layer will be quite enough to keep out that bitter cold today. Stay warm.