Fires and floods

What a difference a year makes. Last year this time we were walking with facemasks to protect ourselves from the smokehaze from the raging fires only 15kms away. Now I wear a mask when I go into town as a Covid precaution.

This afternoon we had a fierce electric storm which went on and on for two hours. I would prefer that experience to not feeling safe in our own home as we did this time last year. Mind you, we weren't flooded like the poor people up on the north coast this week. The world just keeps getting a bit madder.

When we were children we all learnt  Dorothea Mackellar's (1885 - 1963) poem 'My country'. It was written about 1904. The second verse reads:

“I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains."

I suspect that Dorothea didn't quite see the extremes we are seeing now.

Two of the photos were taken during today's storm, just behind our house. The other was taken this time last year when the sky was always red.