'Tis the season ..
.. to be jolly HOT!
This post is written about events while Frances was in Adelaide visiting her family, so she will not feature greatly in it!
After a couple of days birding in Western NSW, with the temperature over 37 degrees Centigrade it was nice to be back in canberra, where it was still well over 30C. This led me to spend a couple of hours sitting on our verandah with a cooling glass or 3 of honey wheat home brew. This was totally peaceful, with only birdsong and the rumbling of thunderstorms (see below) to disturb me.
{A parenthesis: While so relaxing I was reading "Dark Victory" by David Marr and Marian Wilkinson about the immigration crisis of 2001. We missed most of this as we were in Tanzania at the time, but it should be compulsory reading for anyone who wants to understand Australia and why Little Johnny Weasel (our current, but hopefully only for another week as I write, Prime Minister) is the foulest bum on the face of the planet - possibly excluding Dubya, but after reading this book it is no longer a clear decision. The book continues a line of excellent tom,es by good journalists - probably a topic for a separate post, but it would add another level of parenthesis to do so now!}
A side effect of heat is bushfires. As I drove down to visit Ingrid and Alex I was following Engine 1 from the Stony Creek Bush fire Brigade.
This is what they were heading towards.
Here are some of the firies from Captains Flat mopping up. Note the house - apparently unscathed - in the background. An article in the Bungendore Mirror explained that the owners of the house
were lighting up a pile of trash (with a permit to do so) and it got away from them. We wondered why anyone would be daft enough to light a fire in this weather until a week later when Frances twigged the melted "For sale" sign meant that they were tidying up to sell the place. They can now add "wide fire-break to road" to the list of outstanding features.
As well as fires we get thunderstorms. This is a shot of one building up just North of the fire scene: as well as the storm it gives a nice feeling of the Molonglo Valley with cattle and a bush covered hill (Sugarloaf if I have it right) in the background.
On getting home I thought these Callistemon flowers, in our back yard, made a nice contrast to the storm gathering in the background. Since the 2 hours has passed there has been some flashing, much crashing but very little actual rain. Hopefully later.
This post is written about events while Frances was in Adelaide visiting her family, so she will not feature greatly in it!
After a couple of days birding in Western NSW, with the temperature over 37 degrees Centigrade it was nice to be back in canberra, where it was still well over 30C. This led me to spend a couple of hours sitting on our verandah with a cooling glass or 3 of honey wheat home brew. This was totally peaceful, with only birdsong and the rumbling of thunderstorms (see below) to disturb me.
{A parenthesis: While so relaxing I was reading "Dark Victory" by David Marr and Marian Wilkinson about the immigration crisis of 2001. We missed most of this as we were in Tanzania at the time, but it should be compulsory reading for anyone who wants to understand Australia and why Little Johnny Weasel (our current, but hopefully only for another week as I write, Prime Minister) is the foulest bum on the face of the planet - possibly excluding Dubya, but after reading this book it is no longer a clear decision. The book continues a line of excellent tom,es by good journalists - probably a topic for a separate post, but it would add another level of parenthesis to do so now!}
A side effect of heat is bushfires. As I drove down to visit Ingrid and Alex I was following Engine 1 from the Stony Creek Bush fire Brigade.
This is what they were heading towards.
Here are some of the firies from Captains Flat mopping up. Note the house - apparently unscathed - in the background. An article in the Bungendore Mirror explained that the owners of the housewere lighting up a pile of trash (with a permit to do so) and it got away from them. We wondered why anyone would be daft enough to light a fire in this weather until a week later when Frances twigged the melted "For sale" sign meant that they were tidying up to sell the place. They can now add "wide fire-break to road" to the list of outstanding features.
As well as fires we get thunderstorms. This is a shot of one building up just North of the fire scene: as well as the storm it gives a nice feeling of the Molonglo Valley with cattle and a bush covered hill (Sugarloaf if I have it right) in the background.
On getting home I thought these Callistemon flowers, in our back yard, made a nice contrast to the storm gathering in the background. Since the 2 hours has passed there has been some flashing, much crashing but very little actual rain. Hopefully later.
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