Too much excitement

I haven't had an internet connection since Monday and that makes me feel very isolated. But it is the reason why we lost our connection that makes me feel stressed.

On Monday we experienced a tremendous lightning storm - but not a drop of rain. (It has now been 36 days since our last rain). The lightning caused 5 fires in our valley. One started behind our property about 300m from our house and another on the road in front of our house. We weren't hanging around so chucked a few valuables (including current knitting projects) in the car and took off. We didn't get very far when we came across a neighbour trying to put out a small fire with her feet. We stopped to help and with sticks, our feet and a shopping bag kept the fire contained until a fire truck came by and took over. We spent the rest of the afternoon at a neighbour's place until the all clear was given late in the afternoon.

The relief was short lived because on Tuesday the wind whipped up. In the afternoon we heard the fire truck siren as they rushed past our property. At this stage we still had no internet connection and thus couldn't check where the fire was. A while later we could hear Elvis in action. A neighbour called to tell us that there was yet another fire behind us and one lower down in our valley. So an anxious few hours passed with me constantly sniffing the wind for smoke and scanning the sky. But I'm happy to say that both the fires were eventually declared safe.

And then to add to our stress we discovered that the creek which supplies our water dried up yesterday. We do have two large tanks full of water and that should see us through to the end of summer but our garden will have to suffer.

Here's hoping for a speedy end to summer - with another 43C day coming up on Saturday I'm not really overflowing with optimism.