I've just had the immense good fortune of visiting Darwin in the wintertime, during which time I rekindled the friendship I once had with my bare limbs, felt my pace slow and my tension ebb as I wandered around the city centre in 33 degrees enjoying myself.
I wouldn't normally find myself in the tropics at this time of year, but I was there for the Darwin Festival, a yearly event that runs across 18 days. It's been running for as long as I've been alive (40-something years, ahem) and came out of the destruction and devastation wrought by Cyclone Tracey in 1974.
That event left 68 dead and 25,000 homeless residents, and while there was talk at the time of abandoning the city site altogether, enough people were determined to rebuild.
And thank god for that, because out of this determination and optimism, a festival was born.
It's a three-week extravaganza that makes the most of the weather, brings people together, draws tourists to the region and generally celebrates Darwin, its people, its recent and ancient history, and its status as an important centre and a cultural hub.
It was only there for the first four days of it, and I packed in enough to convince me that city-focused festivals are really the thing. I saw theatre, cabaret, acrobatics, dance, painting and sculpture.
But there were also several events that were long-running and Darwin-specific, like the Indigenous Art Fair, and the National Indigenous Music Awards. Once folded in, the program became multi-faceted, a mix of old and new, imported and local, heritage and innovation.
So how about Canberra? The capital and its four distinct seasons? We have Floriade in the spring, and Enlighten in the autumn. We've got Summernats for the new year, and Winter in July for mid-year doldrums.
But these are all events that play off the seasons, and none, with the possible exception of Enlighten, are specifically about celebrating the city.
I think we can all agree - and let's pretend for a second that I am the boss and no one is allowed to disagree with me - that autumn is by far Canberra's best time of the year.
It's no coincidence that we have a string of drawcards during March and April that, if drawn together under a single banner, could easily make an impressive single festival, with Enlighten, the night food markets (noodle or otherwise) and the Balloon Spectacular Festival tying in with the National Folk Festival on the Easter weekend.
Canberra Day, our actual Day of Pride, complete with a public holiday and live concert in the park, would be a flashpoint somewhere in the middle.
It's all semantics, I realise. These events are on each year and those who hang out for them will come along regardless.
But there's something to be said about strategic programming, clever curation, and the appointment of a single festival director, one with experience and a track record and - initially at least - outsider status, to bring it all together each year.
A visit to Canberra in winter is too much for the weak-spirited, although we locals really should celebrate it more.
Summer is too quiet and too hot for most people, with the exception, apparently, of the many thousands of devoted revheads who flock here each January for the car festival.
And spring is well and truly spoken for.
So, let's have the Canberra Festival in autumn. It's a season, after all, with good bones, and some scaffolding already in place.
Now, to find a director.
