'Tis the season to remember Bathurst is more than its brutal winter

Lots of locals do it: talk about June and July on the Central Tablelands as if they are the only two months of the year and the other three seasons don't exist.

We've got good reason, of course.

In mid-winter, when the sun is setting before 5pm and the days are struggling to get out of the single figures, when the trees are skeletal and the fogs aren't lifting before midday, it sometimes seems as if the warm weather will never come again.

The truth is, though, that Bathurst is a city that is the sum of all its seasons.

Yes, the winter is brutal, and there's a reason why many locals with the time and the means fly north to hang out in southern Queensland (though this does mean missing out on the Bathurst Winter Festival and the wondrous sight of a ferris wheel climbing into the air above Russell Street).

The summer here, though, is long, generally hot and lazy. Those backyard pools dotted around the Bathurst suburbs haven't been put in for no reason. Those laps racked up in the 50-metre pool at the Manning Aquatic Centre don't happen by accident.

And autumn and spring (once spring gets going) are a glorious combination of mild days and crisp nights.

Bathurst doesn't always get the temperature settings right, but when it does, it really is something to celebrate.

We've been in one of these sweet spots in recent days, enjoying maximums around the 20-degree mark and nights in the mid-single figures.

The Machattie Park trees still have their leaves, recent rain has city gardens glowing and the mornings are still civilised enough for those who get their kicks by going for a dawn walk by the Macquarie or around the Mount.

Winter is coming, but that's all the more reason to enjoy the weather before June on the Central Tablelands arrives: to lock in a Kings Parade picnic with the family or to meet a mate for a drink in a CBD beer garden or to go for a walk after work amid the sunset.

And when the really cold weather hits? That's when Bathurstians get to prove just what a hardy bunch we are.

We'll rug up, layer up and tell friends in other cities that this one has, beyond a shadow of a doubt, been one of the coldest winters in years here on the tablelands.

It won't matter whether it's true or not. It'll be all about how we feel.