Ugg boots for winter deniers

Moving is a liberating bitch. You lose so much, you gain a lot. After 16 years in the USA, we moved our family back to Australia four months ago. During Blogher’s month of blogging, I’m going to post every day on the theme, “What I’ve Lost, What I’ve Gained, ” a light-hearted account of relocating a family with 9 year old twins.)

After our first winter in Sydney for 20 years, I’m convinced Ugg Australia, the sheepskin boot company, should have a new slogan: “Uggs: The footwear  for winter deniers.”

I’ve lived in London, UK; Philadelphia, Bethesda and Washington, DC, in the USA; and Paris, France; but the bitterest cold I’ve experienced was winter in Sydney.  Blizzards may close schools and bring down power lines in North America, but people who live in those cities concede there is a need for heating.

My memory of winter in Sydney was of us kids getting dressed for school in front of a two-bar radiator, of shoes that never dried out, and of worn wool Onkaparinga blankets that were scratchy, heavy and moth-bally.  To stay warm, we suffocated under three or four grey or faded pink blankets piled heavy on top.

Blogher Glorious Madness

For years, I had scars from burns on the back of my calves from leaning too close to the heater. My first grown up sweater, beige wool designed to go with a maxi dress and high boots, smelled of burnt wool because it would only dry if it was toasted over the radiator.

Winter here means houses are colder inside than out.  The days are often blue and beautiful, and the nights are cold and crisp.  Like the people of Mexico, we Aussies are winter deniers.  Men wear shorts year round. The mean temperature for Sydney this July was 13 degree Celsius /55 F, with some days up in the 60s F and low 70s F, with temperatures dropping to around 5 degree Celsius/41 F at night.

In the States, the central heating blasted all winter long. We  wore tee shirts inside and slept under a light blanket. Once we cranked up our old boiler, it was hard to stop.

Winter  in Sydney means flannelette pajamas, electric blankets, two comforters and cold, drippy, red noses. Winter means getting warmly dressed before you go inside on a mild winter’s day. You don’t get undressed at bedtime, you get re-dressed.

Winter means lectures from  relatives on how you aren’t dressing your kids properly.

One sunny July day, we started shivering as soon as we entered my parents’ house. It was only 9 degrees Celsius outside and inside it was like an igloo. Still, it was too warm to turn on the heater, an attitude shared by many Australians.

“Boys, your mother has to teach you how to dress properly,” said my stepmother.

“Look what I’ve got on,” she said to my twin sons, who were both wearing long sleeve T-shirts covered by American fleece sweatshirts.

She peeled back each layer like an archeological dig.

After her underwear came a thermal spencer (undershirt), then a shirt, and two sweaters on top (all wool). On the bottom, under her jeans, came woolly socks inside high, woolly Ugg boots.

The popularity of wool accounts for a particular look and smell in the Australian winter.

I couldn’t work out why Australians looked so different from their counterparts in Northern America during winter.

It took me a while, but then it came to me.  Australia got rich on the sheep’s back (wool exports) and we’ve retained our love of the old, the hand-knitted, the moth-holey, the bulky, wool sweater. Often these “jumpers,”  as we call them,  look and smell like they’ve been dug out of a camphor box for the past 40 years.  Where is the smart fleece? The Polartec? They exist, but the prices are too high to prevent them displacing worn woolly funky,  rich smelling wool jumpers/ sweaters.

We’ve now got central  heating,  but like most Australians, we’ve learned to only turn it on when you can no longer feel your toes, fingers or nose … or when guests are coming.

Australians seem more frugal, more conscious of the environment, it seems, than the average American. The worst of Australia’s 12 year drought is over, but leaving a tap dripping is close to a crime, and not flushing the toilet profligately (“If it’s yellow, let it mellow”) was natural for my nine year old twin boys.

Oh yeah,  I nearly forgot. We now all have Ugg boots, thanks to my lovely stepmother.

When someone complains they’re cold,  one of us responds:

“Go put your Uggs on. Save the environment. Cut the heating bill.”

We’re not entirely joking.

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