Hot Spot

George and I playing in the surf at Palm Beach (this is not taken in soft focus, but there was a greasy mark on the lens. And I like it...lol)



Maria and the boys!

It's hot. Really really hot. Thirty four degrees today (43 degrees in the car before I put the air con on) with a strong, gusting, hot wind. It is perfect weather for bush fires and they are burning everywhere. There is one at Oxford Falls, which is only a few miles away over the lagoon, where they have been using water bomber aircraft this afternoon. And we went to the beach at Palm Beach and there was a big one at The Basin, which is across Pittwater. On the beach you could smell the smoke. It's part of life here, but I have visited the rural fire service website and read up about what we should do in the event of a bush fire. Some of the information is not what you would expect - for example, if a fire is approaching and you are caught in a car, you should stay in it, and not run like hell. Apparently the likelihood of your petrol tank igniting is really very small, and the car may protect you. The fire will pass over in under a minute. Excellent.

So - we went to Palm Beach with Maria, Sam and Luke. Sam and Luke brought Nick with them, and I took George and Anna plus Andrew and Sophie. It was great, but eventually too hot, so we decided to come home and get in the shade. When we got here, although the house was cool, there was an extraordinary hot wind whipping across the lagoon - like a hairdryer. It was quite oppressive and not something I've ever experienced before. However, things have cooled down a bit now - and everyone tells me this is unusual weather! Now - where have I heard that before??! It seems that every type of weather we've seen here so far has been unusual - hot or cold! It seems that today was the hottest day on this date for 140 years.

We are going away on Saturday for a week - to a place called Angourie, about 9 hours up the coast. We will still be in New South Wales, but not far from the border with Queensland. There are fires everywhere up there at the moment. Next week it is supposed to be cooler and more humid, so the risk should be smaller. We are taking a couple of days to get up there, and taking some scenic detours. I'm rather excited about it, as it will all be new, and the area we are visiting looks really beautiful. Everyone I mention it to tells me it is lovely, so they stakes are high!

The insects have arrived. Although we've been worrying about spiders, we really have seen very few and none in the house. George threw a toilet roll at something he claimed was a spider (which actually turned out to be more of a daddy long legs - and the loo roll ricocheted off the wall and fell into the toilet, which George was weeing in....),and there was a big one inside the newspaper once when I brought it in, but apart from that - nothing. However, now we are getting mosquitos and I have some hideously swollen bites. Plus huge hairy moths, which seem to like to take residence in the underpants on the washing line if I leave them there over night.

Course - the good thing about strong winds and the hot weather is that the washing gets dry in no time!