Last day of summer - yeah right.

It's official, its the last day of summer. I laugh in the face of such nonsense (from the smugness of living in WA, of course). Poor Perth is snivelling because they have had 20 days with the temp over 30Celcius, and five days with the temps over 35C. I think they have had 20 nights with the temps over 20C as well, which has been the single hottest summer for Perth since records were taken (over 100 yrs). I laugh because when living at Tardun, 30C was a cool day, and a hot summer would have been 40+ temps for a similar amount of days with a few 50+ thrown in for good measure.

I feel like I am channelling Dad with so much talk about the weather, but it is the weather that has continued to remain in the headlines over the past few months with a dose of earthquake from NZ. After the massive floods in Queensland, they were hit by cyclone Yasi barely a week after the flooding was starting to ease. This morning on the telly, they said that 1/4 of Victoria was under flooding during the same time. The pictures that have come out of these disasters have been unprecedented and I have to say, the media, I think, have done a brilliant job reporting with sensitivity in capturing the magnitude of these natural disasters and the human toll they have taken.

Western Australia has not escaped as we had flooding in Carnarvon at much the same time Queensland was inundated, followed by Cyclones Diana, and Carlos in the last few weeks. Carnarvon has flooded twice more and the flow on effects reached this neck of the woods last weekend with the Irwin river (and another river I have forgotten the name of) flooding which meant that those out Tardun way were cut off for a period of time, with Mullewa flooded across the roads, and the main road to Dongara closed last Saturday night from 11pm until 10am the next day. I was told yesterday that the flood waters have washed out dirt etc under railway tracks at Mullewa and parts of the side of the road have also been washed away. In Geraldton two weeks ago, there was a huge dust storm/mini cyclone or the edge of one come through. I slept through it though those who saw it said it was pretty impressive. It blew fences down , threw tramplines across lawns, etc but did more damage further down where houses lost roofs, vehicles turned over and at York, it blew the 100 yr old plus grandstand down at the race course. There were tragic consequences in Geraldton when a 17 yr old girl, walking home from a party with friends stood on live power lines that had been blown down and was electrocuted to death. Two friends tried to help her, the girl receiving 60% burns and the young lad, who was an auto electrician, who took off his boots to knock the girls off the wires, received burns but was out of hospital a few days later. Jude's grandson who was staying with me had been to school with the boy concerned and the girl that died, so the ripples of the disaster touched home. I had heard a bit of a noise before I got up that day, and wandered out thinking I might see some storm over the ocean. Instead, when I looked out the window, there was a large branch of the gumtree next to the house which had come down, the noise probably when it glance off the roof of the porch.

Last Saturday we had more thunder and lightening and then more rain, the tail end of Carlos from up north I think. The clouds in the sky have been magnificent, whitest white big puffball clouds that slowly turn black and then lightening and thunder. One of the young boys at work was scared of the storms but I think we have turned that round. He kept asking me if I was scared and I said no, I love watching thunder and lightening and if you are inside you should be fine. We were outside and counted the time from lightening to thunder so the storm was initially 12 miles away, and later 6 miles away and then went sideways away from us. The boys ended up by playing out in the rain, turning on the hose for good measure. I did have them scuttling off the trampoline if we saw lightening (I knew it was far enough away but did not see the harm in getting them to realise they needed to be away from something that could conduct lightening if the storm was overhead) and taught them that you cannot stand under trees either so hopefully, that knowledge will stay with them should they ever get caught out in wild weather in later years.

In the midst of this there was the bush fire just out of Perth where 72 homes were lost. Jude's brother and sister in law were evacuated from their home but were lucky not to lose it. Houses that were lost were only about 5k away. The fire was started from a spark from an angle grinder as an off duty policeman was doing some work at home. He is beyond devasted and apparrently is to be charged for setting the fire. Though there was a fire ban, not many would have thought that using an angle grinder was out of bounds so to speak so there is huge sympathy for the bloke concerned. It will be interesting to see if the case gets off the ground as this was a genuine accidental start to the fire with all others to date having been lit on purpose. That is where the full force of the law needs to take place in my opinion with maybe more awareness made of what a fire ban includes for the future.

Just when I thought we were through the worst of it over here, I was rung by Jude to see if I was awake and watching tv last Monday morning as there had been an earthquake in Christchurch (NZ). I was awake, but had my nose in a book lying in bed in what felt like sheer luxury ( I had a day off, lol). As I had to get up to answer the phone, I was busy turning on the tv at the same time and sat down for the rest of the day on the couch, watching in disbelief and horror at what unfolded. I knew I was seeing things as they happened, after shocks while reporting took place, but it seemed incomprehensible at the same time. The first thing was doing a mental check list thinking about people I knew of who lived there, and have since found out all are safe though some have suffered damage to their homes. GWN - channel 7 here, stopped all programs and ran continuous reporting from Christchurch during the day and most of the night. They started at 3am here the following day until 8.30pm with only breaks for other news. The emotion from the people concerned with search and rescue, Mayor Bob Parker and the scenes of devastation brought tears to my eyes. The Anglican Cathedral, icon of Christchurch, to see that broken and to know people were amongst the rubble was extremely graphic, followed by the CCTV building and the Pine gould building where they actually managed to retrieve some people alive from the rubble the following day. I was so impressed by how the Aussies responded. Prime Minister Julia Gillard had a team of search and rescue folk on the next plane out of here as the news broke. Three hundred Police from Australia arrived later in the week and $5 million was sent for aid. It was only three weeks before when NZ had sent search and rescue and police over here for the flooding in Queensland, so the ANZAC spirit lives on. I think it is still safe to say that in sport, all bets are off, but in times of need the two countries have each other's backs. We have been called cousins and brothers and sisters in the Australian Parliament with both the Government and Opposition as one in support for the aid sent to Christchurch.

As I said, the reporting has been amazing. Koshie and Grant Denier from our morning show both were back in the thick of it reporting. Grant Denier had been in Christchurch in October after the previous earthquake when the tourist board invited him over as a way of promoting tourism for the area post the last quake. He reported from Lyttleton and was visibly shaken when he saw pictures of the Grand Chancellor hotel where he had stayed in October, able to pick out the room he stayed in even, as the building was now cracked and in danger of collapsing. There was huge interest with one of the women (Australian) was rescued from the Pine Gould building and of course other stories that directly involved any Australian. Mayor Bob Parker I thought was amazing and his press conferences hugely sensative and moving at the same time. A week later, we are now reduced to clips in the news but the quake is mentioned in all reports. News today of the first of the funerals to be held.

I still feel blown away that it is Christchurch that has copped the big one, or what we hope is now the definitive big one. Wellington has always been the predicted hotspot for the big one and having the No1 son and his family, the N01 neice and her partner , the next door neighbours' daughter and several friends living there, I always have a part of my mind concerned should something major happen there. The reality is that if you live in NZ and are not on the fault line, you probably have a volcano (albeit extinct except the three at Taupo), in near proximity, that given the right circumstances could always blow up. Cheerful thought I know, but at 18 I remember being terrified that nuclear war was imminent and if you were not lucky enough to be vaporised, an unpleasant future was the next best option. I could also have been run over by a bus, (should there have been bus transport in Waiuku, lol ) but you get my drift. I am not sure you can ever prepare for the disasters we have experienced in the past weeks with the magnitude they have occured. All have been the worst in over a hundred years or 80 yrs for the earthquake. These disasters will become difinitive markers in the lives of many individuals and for both countries as a whole. Both countries have taken severe hits but the pioneering spirit that they were founded on will be what will come to the fore again and this has been demonstrated time and time again over the past weeks with the response from ordinary people performing great acts of bravery, to opening homes to folk who have lost everything, to big businesses sending goods to the worst hit areas, to random people turning up to help with the clean ups, to providing support to all those who have worked hard in the search and resuce efforts, and to all the evacuees in the various shelters that were set up. I have been touched at the people who knowing I come from NZ, contacted me in the days following to see if I was all right, whether I had anyone involved in it.

In the midst of all this I have been working, I did 113 hours the previous fortnight and not far off last fortnight due to increase in children at the home and staff illness. The plus is a chunk of money in the bank as I have no time or inclination to spend at the moment. I have today and tomorrow off (so far) and hopefully this week I will not get rung up to do extra like the last two weeks on my days off. During the last fortnight I celebrated my birthday on the 14th and will mention that in a different post. Am going to get this posted and go get ready to do a few chores. I am seeing on the TV that it is the Oscars tonight, woohoo. Will be watching that and thinking how scarey it is that I can remember Bob Hope comparing the Oscars when I first watched them......... . Nuff said, lol.