Very best wishes on your 29th, Lacey!



I hope you and yours are keeping your cool amid what sounds like intolerable!e heat and the terrifying fires. Forget it all for a while and have a lovely day.

Thank you, Andere - I don’t feel a day over 21.

The bushfires over this season have been the worst in living memory and they are very far from over, we still have a long way to go. We have been very lucky in my part of Sydney since the Royal National Park, less than 5 minute drive from me, has so far escaped the fires. We did have one scare when someone deliberately lit a fire but there were other people close by who extinguished it and the arsonist was arrested. While the fires have ringed Sydney, the nearest has been around 55 klms away from here and since I live on a 7 lane (soon to be 8 lane) Highway, I think we are pretty safe where I am.

The fires started in Queensland, then reached NSW, South Australia are now affecting Victoria after devastating the south Coast of NSW with fires in all the other states, too. The smoke has been covering huge areas and even reaching as far as New Zealand. So far 11 people have been reported to have died or are missing with hundreds of buildings destroyed, even rainforests have been burning in the tropical parts of Australia !

Glad you're OK. I've been checking up on my cousin in Vic but the fires are all well to the N and E of her, about 70km away.
It's easy to forget what a vast country Australia is - the rushed and condensed nature of news reports here can leave you with the impression that there's barely a hamlet or cattle station un-burnt at present. (Much the same as when half the world was given the impression a few weeks ago that the entire east midlands was under water. ) The long term effects of all that smoke can't be good and will surely result in increased respiratory problems for the health services to deal with and the stress the fire and rescue personnel are under is unimaginable. Stay safe!

Yes, Australia is a large country, you can fit the whole of Europe within it. People seem to think that we could take a lot more migrants and refugees but they forget that massive areas of the country are desert with no water at all and therefore uninhabitable. The fires have charred close to 4 million hectares of land so far and are still burning. Not sure if it made it to your news channels but there has been video here of rivulets of molten metal running from vehicles destroyed in the bushfires.

Unfortunately the fires can spread rapidly and a fire that seems so far away can be at your fence line before you know it. My daughter lives in Bendigo, north west of Melbourne, so I am hoping she and her family will be safe. It depends on the lovely people who go around lighting the fires too !!!

A HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY LACEY
From Dolly and Me, A HAPPY NEW YEAR TOO xxxxxxxxxx

Thank you Dita, I hope you and Dolly have a Happy New Year, too.