Airborne leaf

Yesterday Michael picked up something black in the backyard and said ‘Look - a burnt leaf!’ It was black, and it was a leaf, but it looked to me like maybe it was from something with naturally dark foliage, so I said to him no, I don't think it’s from the bushfire. On Friday the wind was blowing from the further fires inland, and they are 70km away, so I didn’t really believe it could be from there.

Then last night I went for a run around the soccer ground, and in that big open area with short grass, it was easy to see that in fact there were scorched leaves and bits of bark everywhere, that must have travelled from the Lake Repulse fire on Friday.

So I apologised to Michael and we agreed we should keep these leaves in a little jar and label them 4 Jan 2013, Hottest Day in Hobart Ever.

As of Jan 8 this is our collection. Amazingly, tomorrow is going to be 16° max with snow above 700m!

Fires

Just a quick post about the bushfires in Southeast Tasmania. We are fine and everyone we know in the affected areas are OK. Hobart had a record high temperature of 42°C on Friday, high winds and inevitably when fires started they were impossible to control. So far about 100 homes have been destroyed and thousands of people have been evacuated.

Some people are yet to be located but so far there are no confirmed fatalities, and I have not heard of any serious injuries. That's a testament to an amazing effort from the fire service, other emergency services and a huge flotilla of volunteer boats who ferried people away from the stricken areas when the roads were impassable.

On a world scale I know this is a very minor natural disaster, but if anyone felt they wanted to help out, there is an online appeal for donations here - scroll down to South Eastern Tasmania Bushfire Appeal.

Hot

We just had the hottest weekend in recorded Hobart history - 39° followed by 37°. Or maybe it got to 40° both days - depends how sensational you want to be about it. So I have renamed it Hotbart. Tomorrow we are expecting a top of 19, and then in no time we will back to the freezing sleet - so I don't expect Hotbart to catch on.

I have finished* the freelance job that's been keeping me up til all hours for the last 3 weeks. Finished it at 1.30am this morning, at approx 27°.

On Saturday morning before it got seriously hot, I took the boys to Little Athletics. Our involvement is nearing its end - we have agreed with the boys to skip it next summer. In any case, Michael recorded personal bests in the long jump, discus and 200 metres. Marcus did a monster discus throw of nearly 20 metres - that's a qualifier for the State Finals but you need two qualifiers, and that is the last discus competition for the season. I am just glad I was there to see it - I tend to miss a lot of Marcus's Under 10 events while I am following Michael around trying to be helpful with the Under 8s.

*Hopefully it will not come back. Hopefully.

Chinese acrobats and "comedian clowns"

[This is a review of a show we went to nearly a week ago. It is a bad idea to try to write something that much later - it will be at best impressionistic.]

Last Thursday it hit 34°. By Sunday night it was down to 4° again. I am just glad I am not a tourist - at least I have a whole wardrobe full of clothes for all seasons. As it happened Thursday was the day we went to see a free concert by a visiting troupe from subtropical Fujian province, China, which has been twinned with Tasmania since the 1950s! I did not know this.

By the time we arrived at the concert hall it was about 90% full. Marcus and I sat in the very back row, at a ridiculous altitude above the stage. Elf couldn't bring herself to keep climbing that far so she and Michael were a few rows below us. People everywhere were trying to save seats. One lady was trying to save an entire row. Two groups of people eventually double-teamed her, and the forces of good manners prevailed.

That chubby young lass who is our Premier did a good job with her speech, getting out some authentically Chinese sounds when she had to say the names of visiting dignitaries. When the Trade Envoy or whatever replied he was interpreted by an interpreter. Who popped up again later.

The acrobats were all terrific, a lot of thrilling diving and leaping and so on. There was a lot of male harem pants. The juggling and plate-spinning (there was a lot of plate-spinning) was all fairly incredible. The rest of the program was a bit patchy, and it went on and on and on. The puppets were too far away. Chinese pop and bel canto singing was just not my cup of tea.

The magician's segment was called Mystical Smile-Magic. The now-disembodied interpreter asked for volunteers, then tried to get them (young kids) to do the right things with a hanky by booming at them distantly. “Fold it in half. No - from the corner. Move forward. Not there. Forward. Fold it”. It was excruciating. As was the “comedian clown”. The program called this segment funny and relaxing. It didn't really manage either. But to be honest the acrobats were so good, they made up for all the other stuff.

The program went on so long, that by the end the many parents in the audience were straining to get their kids home to bed. We then had the unusual phenomenon of a standing ovation combined with a mass exodus. People (including us) were clapping their hands raw while simultaneously streaming to the exits.

Hot

So, I am back at work after the longest holiday I have had in some years. And it's yucky here. The things that I miss when I'm at home (working email, working printer) are broken. Its 33° C in here and I'm not allowed to keep a change of clothes in the fridge, like I would at home.

Today I am dropping off the eight drawings that are going to hang in Magnolia Café for 8 weeks. I hope I will get a few bites. Six of them were drawn in 1998 and were part of a solo show I had that year, that was fun but unsuccessful on the sales front.

I am quite nervous about it all. I have lived with the others for so long that I accept them for what they are. When I look at the two new ones I can't take my eyes off the mistakes and occasional ham-fistedness.

If they were someone else's and I was trying to be nice I would say "wow - there's certainly a lot of work in those!" I could never be accused of making it look easy.

Hot

It's finally cooled down. We had a very hot weekend, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Its very unusual for the temperature to stay up that long in Tasmania. The change finally arrived about 9pm last night. We went to the beach early on Saturday, but avoided it completely on Sunday. Like all people who live near beaches, we look down our nose at daytrippers, and they were hanging from the trees yesterday.

Hobart has some very nice beaches, and one of the great things about them (usually) is the lack of people. You can go there on a very nice day, but unless its 30° you won't see many people. Suddenly when it gets that hot, everyone jumps into the 4WD and gets down to a beach to fight for a parking spot. The hotter it gets the more people arrive. Around 5pm I had to to post some things, and the shortest way home from the PO was along the Esplanade - it was like the Royal Hobart Show in swimwear. Sunburned people stepping in front of cars. Erratically parked hoonmobiles. Six people hanging off a jetski.

Emergency services have reported that they were as busy as an average New Years Eve. Some heatstroke I suppose, but mostly people who have sat in the sun, tried to "cool down" with beer, then done something silly.

We were at the Big Hardware Hangar yesterday around midday, and the boofheads in front of us were buying one of the those split-cycle air conditioners that comes in two very big boxes. The sparky "team member" on the register said to them "are you setting it up yourself?" Yeah. "How long do you reckon that'll take?" Dunno. "Be a shame if you get it all set up and its already cooled down eh?" Er, yeah.