Bushfires

I'm listening to the growling of water-bombing aircraft in the skies – there's a bushfire up near Blackheath (50 km away by road, less as the kookaburra flies) that the firefighters are trying to bring under control before we get some strong winds early tomorrow. Smoky air, grey skies … no ash in the air though, a very good thing. I remember fires back in '93', I think, when I was living in western Sydney suburbia, and we got a lot of ash particles then, from Winmalee, which was about the same distance away. I hope the fires are confined and no-one's homes are damaged or destroyed this year.

I've hosed down my gutters, because they're full of jacaranda fronds (again! yes they've been cleaned out recently, but the buggers just accumulate), with a view to cleaning them out properly tomorrow.