In our age of instant gratification, the slow shifting of the seasons on the Central Tablelands is a reminder that some things simply take time - and maybe they are more appreciated for that.

Newcomers to the city - and there are hundreds of them each year, due to Orange's galloping growth rate - might be wondering about now when spring is actually going to begin, given that winter officially finished six weeks ago.

When will the frosts be gone for good and the maximums move permanently into the 20s? When can the doonas be confidently packed away and the vegetables planted?

The answer, as any long-term local would know, is that spring will really begin when the Orange weather feels like it - and that might be next week or it might be mid-November.

If sub-zero degree days in late September weren’t enough to make that point, then an early October day last week that just managed to limp beyond 12 degrees certainly would have done the trick.

A predicted top temperature of 13 degrees on Thursday will then really hammer the message home - the cold days ain't over until they're over.

But that's the bad news. The good news is that the Orange weather does not just occasionally irritate, it also influences. It creates character.

If a city’s weather moulds a city’s citizens, then it could be argued that we have taken the best lessons from some of the climatic brutality served up to us each year.

Accustomed to long winters, abortive starts to spring and a number of seasons in one day, we have learnt to become patient and accepting, able to smile wryly at the unexpected and just get on with it.

We are hardy, but optimistic: ever-hopeful that things will be better tomorrow and ready to take advantage when they are.

We appreciate a sunny day in a way others, with sunny days on tap, do not.

And we long ago absorbed the Boy Scouts’ “be prepared” motto – we take a jumper or a jacket to an evening function any time from March through to October, because we know nothing can be taken for granted.

So to the newcomers to Orange, we say don’t be alarmed. Spring weather – the sort of spring weather you’re used to - is not too far away.

But it might be an idea to keep the doona on the bed a while longer.