What a weird day....

Hi all!

I'm afraid this post probably has a bare minimum of tatting content, so feel free to skip over.

My apologies in advance for the huge, rambling length of this, at least hopefully it'll be out of my head!

Tatting stuff first....Well, I've finished a UFO! Yay!!!! Here it is in all it's glory below. However, actually finishing something is not the weird bit.

For non-Aussies, today's the 1st anniversary of Black Saturday, i.e. the horrific bushfires that started on this day in Victoria last year. For a bit of a summary, wikipedia's probably good enough. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Saturday_bushfires

That day would have been memorable enough simply for being the hottest day in the state of Victoria in settled history (46C). I don't live in the bushfire zone, but getting through that day with a toddler and no aircon, too hot to open anything for a bit of fresh air (until things start burning).... Not fun. Other than that, my family and friends were thankfully not affected (or at least didn't suffer direct physical damage), but it's hard not to think of those that were today....

What's weird is the weather today as compared to last year - it's a very mild February so far, so there I was, sitting out in the back yard this morning with my tatting, beautiful blue sky all around, not a breath of a breeze, watching DT doing a bit of installation art on a rosebush with the clothes pegs.... Last year, I was hardly game to stick my nose out the door it was that hot, it hadn't even dropped below 30C the previous night....

Anyway, amongst other things, Feb the 7th was a meeting day for the local tatters guild. My car was so far out of service I wasn't game to drive the 40mins to get there, and I had no idea what 46C would do to the tyres on my poor little buzz box, so I bunkered down with my boys to wait for that cool change.

However we apparently had even MORE people turn up than usual! There were a few people from the at risk areas that found they couldn't get home at the end of the day due to road blocks.

My heart was in my mouth for about 48 hours when I realised I couldn't contact a friend in one of the affected areas - you can imagine my relief when she finally checked in.

Given that I had been told some time previous that I was essentially godparent to her shuttle collection, there were some pretty afwful images going through my head involving molten metal and plastic (and worse).....

When I finally did see her face to face at another meeting, found out that she had been safer than her collection, as she was out of harm's way, but the collection was at a friend's .....in Kinglake (i.e. ground zero). Friends, shuttles and all are well, but the skin still crawls...

Add to this, one of my work colleagues has been a CFA (country fire authority) volunteer for some years, so I knew there was a pretty good chance he would be out fighting fires. When the stories started coming out just how bad things were, I was not so much worried for his safety, as for what he would be dealing with.

He came through, but I haven't asked him anything about it. As it is, his crew had to rescue another crew that ran into trouble in Kinglake.

Some years previously, I had been on a pretty massive tatting kick at work, building up to getting married later in the year. Somehow I got diverted onto bookmarks. Andrew decided one of these was just the thing for his MIL's birthday, so I got my first commission. (Yay!)

MIL was suitably impressed, and asked "But how do I keep it flat??" Andrew: "Keep it in the book!"

I got roundly told off by same for not having had any tatting in the Royal Show that year, as he'd made an effort to go and look for it. I suspect my impending nuptials were seen as bit of a weak excuse. =)

To see what Andrew's crew got up to, there's a summary at http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/our-volunteers-are-there-with-a-helping-hand-whenever-it-is-needed.
The full version (in Andrew's words) is at http://www.wongaparkcfa.au.eu.org/KinglakeRescue.html

There are also pics of his crew.

Well, that's Feb the 7th out of my system for this year - let's hope we don't see its likes again for a long, looooooong time - never's probably too much to hope for.