All posts tagged: summer

Surviving a bushfire in Australia takes courage & preparation #resilience

“Don’t send clothes”- The aftermath of an Australian bushfire Part 1

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Can you imagine seeing a wall of flames heading towards you as you stand on your front porch or driveway, or perhaps the entryway to your apartment block? What if it was coming from the left hand side? Or the rear? What would you do? This exact scenario has happened to my dear friends TWICE this year already, on their 300-acre beef cattle property, about 2.5 hours from where I live [comfortably] on the coast. I don’t know how they do it. In the 2002 bushfires, a fireball landed on the place, and they lost everything. Everything. Animals, sheds, machinery, trucks and tractors, fencing, and their home. Completely vanished in an inferno they could do nothing to stop, as they weren’t there. 17 years later, they were at home, and fought the blaze. ‘Fought’ is the correct term too. All night long, they doused with water, directed hoses, ran pumps (only solar and generator electricity available), and finished up emptying buckets by hand as the power failed. They’re living legends as far as I’m concerned. …

The return of ‘normal programming’: Me Monday catch up

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Hi. What have I got for ‘Me Monday’ you wonder? I’m back from the burrow of that Permaculture Paradise, and ready to reconnect with all the Readers who were just yawning at so many photos of trees and veggie gardens. Well, H is here from Melbs, so that’s been fun- Summer has given us a last hit of humid steaminess, and we actually had to lock ourselves in the living room with the aircon for a couple of days, including dragging two single mattresses onto the floor to get some proper sleep. You could tell who didn’t have aircon around town because they looked sleep-deprived and grumpy; after 3 nights in a row of + 30C, I was praying for the cool change! When I lived in Adelaide a few years ago, we once had 10 days in a row of + 40C (104F) and my tiny garden studio had no aircon; I was ready to kill someone just for a good night’s sleep. In fact, one afternoon I snuck into my landlady’s house (I had my …

‘You have such a three-year pattern! Look at yourself, for god’s sake!’

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The door slams. It’s 1994, in a hot Sydney summer, when even the fat cockroaches in our slummy student house look a bit sweaty. My friend R has left the living room, but her dark mood and comment lingers. I frown back, staring down her words. Am I really a 3-year addict? Does it matter? Obviously it does to her, but I’m not feeling that distressed. The sink pipe knocks as usual while I pour myself a glass of water; is our hopeless landlord ever going to fix that? Well, it won’t matter anyway, if I move out… I’ve lived here for a while now, and it feels like time for a change… to the beach maybe, over at Bondi. How long has it been, this inner city dwelling? Nearly 3 years of hot pavements, squashed terrace houses with fragrant frangipanis, the endless hum of cars and their exhaust fumes. Before that, it was a scruffy flat in Coffs Harbour, with greasy carpets, and peeling paint on all the weatherboards and windows. Did I live …