Yrae Chronicles

Three weeks ago it was still winter. I was at the cricket and it was cold and wet and everyone was in winter gear, complete with Crows scarves and beanies cos Cricket Australia doesn't make scarves and beanies. Last week it was spring! We got, like, a solid six days of spring this year. That's a lot of spring because spring is a lie. It's winter up until mid-December, then you get a week of spring, tops, and then BAM you're on day four of 40+ and everything's on fire.

Hey look everything's on fire. Must be summer. IT WAS WINTER THREE WEEKS AGO.


The Advertiser is Helpful. (I mean, they're not wrong. Also lol 'cool in the night' that very night it was still 37 at midnight.)

Mostly, though, fire. I'll just preface all this by saying I'm safe, my family's safe and I promise if I'm ever in a danger zone I'll evacuate (as will be described below) but yes. For now, my bit of the Hills is fine and dandy.

So, fire. NSW has had it shit for ages now, and that's undoubtedly what's been making international news, but we sadly got our bit yesterday. Catastrophic fire conditions (which is the worst) which doesn't necessarily mean something will catch fire, it just means that if something does catch fire it's going to be a shitshow. We've been through plenty of catastrophic days where no catastrophe actually eventuated. Yesterday, manymany things caught fire. Big ones on Yorke Peninsula, in grasslands just off Main North Road, stuff on Kangaroo Island which seems to have been worse today than yesterday, started by dry lightning.

The big one, though, has been the Cudlee Creek fire, which I'd been monitoring all morning, then we went to end of work/pre Christmas lunch at a pub whose aircon was not coping with its fourth day over 40. Those poor waitresses and kitchen staff, omg.

For the record, I live in amongst all those little greyed out <!&rt; marks in the bottom left of those maps. The red indicates the warning area, where you should really be evacuating, and the hasshed-ut bits indicate the fireground. Individual icons indicate reported incidents--exclamation points being small, localised things (like a house alarm, tree down, car accident, that sort of thing), fire is when general nature is on fire and (not visible here, but they'll come in a sec) little houses with fire are buildings on fire.

So that was how it was developing yesterday. Started the top left of that red blob, north-westerly blew it south-east and devouered Lobethal and Woodside, then a cool change hit and brought with it cool winds (it only got to 23 today), fuck-all rain, dry lighting that started the fires on KI and a change in wind direction, so now the goddamn thing looks like ( this )

Or even more specifically, this. The fireground is the size of Adelaide. Those little pockets there, if you zoom in on Woodside, for example, are where the fieries have managed to keep it back from the actual townships. Yellow means it's downgraded from 'Emergency' status to 'Watch and Act' status, which I'm unclear on because the latest report from the CFS says it's still uncontrolled so idk. Maybe it's just because the conditions aren't nearly so bad as yesterday. Also this from my favourite insta, which is terrifying.

I wish I'd taken a screenie of this before the cloud came over. You could see the plume of smoke on the satelite image from the fire, but I mean... you have to zoom in to see it. Pan west and the shit that's going on in NSW right now is horrifying. If you look at that in daylight (ie not the infra red overnight) then all the dirty-looking cloud cover you can see over half the country is smoke. Cricket match I was watching tonight from Canberra was abandoned because smoke blew over the ground and it looked like this. Victoria is not on fire and yet Melbourne looks like this.

I think WA is okay. They seem to be not on fire. Well done WA!

Oh also, Cudlee Creek was started by a tree falling on power lines. Not fire bugs, thank god.

But yes. In closing, I'm safe. The cool change is now blowing the fire in the complete opposite direction from me (on that map above, I'm around about where the lone greyed out <!&rt; is in the bottom right-ish). It'd have to get through the whole Crafers/Stirling/Bridgewater area, which is much more heavily populated than where it is now and hence much easier for the fieries to navigate by road. It'd also have to jump the freeway, the big red wiggle going through said Crafers/Stirling/Bridgewater area. So yeah, I'm safe and I promise I'll tell you if ever I'm not ♥

COOL CHANGE YESSSSSSSSSSS oh my god it was only 28 degrees today and I had legit goosebumps when I went to lunch. Drops of water fell from the sky but only of the variety that sit on the ground for about 20 seconds before evaporating and making it humid. But I mean. At least it was so humid that the garden was still damp after I watered it last night, so that was a nice bonus. Didn't have to water the garden today, woo.

So yesterday it was foreccast for 47, right? We exceeded it. Forty-eight degrees Celcius. That's a touch over 118 for my American lovelies. D'YOU KNOW WHAT? NOT KEEN. I'm not sure I can put this into words someone not Australian will understand? But anyway. When it's hot and you stand in the sun, you can feel it burning your skin. I guarantee this is a uniquely Australian thing, because we have no ozone. Trust me, you can feel it. It's not just hot, it's actually burning as you're standing there. So that's normal omfgHOT. That's like... 35-42 hot. Everyone in Australia has experienced that kind of hot. It sucks, but you get a day or five of those every summer.

48 is a solid six degrees on top of omfgHOT. It feels like that in the shade. It feels like the sun is burning your skin while standing in the shade.

It hit 40 by about 10am and just kept piling on a degree or two every hour until we maxed out at 3pm. The aircon at work was really struggling, so even inside it was probably nudging up towards 30. In the absence of blinds, we taped a piece of pull-up banner stock to the window when the sun came around that side of the building and that made a noticeable difference.

Then I had to get in the car and drive home, and that suuuuucked. Even parked in the shade, the steering wheel was burninating so I was holding it with my fingernails. Pumping the aircon, obvs. Got home, had dinner and went straight to the beach.

Glorious.

The sea was glassy-flat and there was absolutely zero chill factor. None of the hugging yourself as the water inches up your knees, thighs, bits, belly--none of that. It was practically tropical. There were pockets of water so warm it was like someone had peed there, only they hadn't because these pockets were fully the size of a human and also nobody was within 50m of me.

So I did my fitness, swam half a k or thereabouts, and floated there until I got bored, basically. Then I got ice cream because fuckit. I felt like it was cooling down at, like, 8pm. Checked my phone and it was 40. It had indeed dropped eight degrees, woo.

And that's the story of how I survived 48°C. I feel like I need a tshirt to commemorate the occasion, to go along with my I Survived The Statewide Blackout commemorative cap of... whenever that was. 2016? Meh.

Today it wasn't 40 degrees! This is noteworthy because it has been 40 degrees for four days in a row, and today it's bumped around between 23 and 27 literally since midnight. It's been glorious. Opened the house up when I got home and just blew all the heat straight through. I made it all through winter without using the aircon* and I was trying to make it through summer doing the same, but nope. Two nights ago I just couldn't do it. It was still 30 at midnight, cold shower and damp bedsocks didn't keep me cool enough for long enough to get to sleep, so fuckit, aircon. And again last night. Tonight I might even be back under the quilt again, omfg. I love a cool change.

I was up at Mum and Dad's on Monday and Tuesday night, who invited me up to use the pool. Aww yeah.

Also been keeping up with the fitness for the year, so that's an achievement already. Last weekend I went on the first of these--number 12, the Blowhole Beach to Marrano Creek walk, which I've been posting photos of on my Insta through the week. Picked this one first because I wanted to get the furthest away one out of the way first, and also it was 30 degrees at home and only 22 down there. It sure was a hike! The 'coastal walk' portion of the hike was 1km out of 6.5km, which I was expecting to be able to stroll along barefoot and just chill a bit, because this is South Australia and our entire coastline is beaches... except apparently the bottom tip of the Fleurieu Peninsula. It was a very up-and-down hike, not the coastal stroll I was expecting. Anyway. I encountered wildlife--roughly half a dozen kangaroos in various states of can't-be-arsed--and the views were pretty awesome. Because I needed the GPS to find the place, I did run the phone battery down to emergency power with still an hour to go, but it at least didn't go flat until after I'd finished the walk. It went a bit straight-line for the last loop but at least it still kept all my time. But yeah. Looking forward to keeping up with these! I'm going to be interested to see all these walking places around my city :D

Tomorrow I've booked my bike in to get its brakes fixed, after I shot them, like, a month after moving here, and I pumped the tyres up this afternoon. Those few 'walks' on my list that are, like, 40km long I won't be walking, I will be riding. The long ones are all pretty much flat, though, like Linear Park, which goes from the beach to the CBD (and Adelaide is a flat city, trust me) or Goolwa to Port Elliot, which is all along the beach and more typical SA coast of just straight up beach.

* except when people were here, because I'm cheap, not a tightarse.

Tada! Mostly. That was last weekend, tomorrow I'll actually plant the succulents (all five of them; Bunnings is lacking in succulents in winter) because the weather this week has been utter shit.

Last night, in particular, really gave meaning to the phrase 'bucketing down'. As I was driving home, just gotten over the roundabout that's about 3 minutes from home, few spots on the windscreen and FWOOM. Down it came. I slowed to a crawl, barely able to see the frigging road let alone anyone in front, just getting far enough that I was past the various intersections leading into--and out of--supermarkets, so I could pull over. Another two or three cars also pulled over, and a few more crawled past not much more than walking pace, probably also looking where to pull over. It was so intense. I've never seen rain that heavy before. It was honestly like someone was pouring buckets of water over the car for five minutes. So cool. Just wish it'd held off for a couple more minutes so I could've gotten home, but oh well.

As may have been picked up on last weekend, I've gotten back onto the fitness. In the first few weeks of winter, smart move. But I've kept it up so far! Gone for a fitness-walk every night through the week, even last night. Once the rain slowed and I could drive again, it'd pretty much stopped by the time I got home, then when I'd gotten changed out of work clothes and into trackie dacks, it was barely a drizzle that let up after less than a minute of walking. So I haven't had to go out in the rain yet, but holy BALLS it's cold*. I've managed to get out and do it, though, so if I can do it now then I should be able to keep it up. I still want to get down to 70-ish kilos, hopefully this year, but I mean, if I get to 78 and stagnate, then I'm done. I just know I can get fitter than I am, and it feels good to get there. So. I want to do that again :D

ALSO. Last thing. Electricity is so shitting expensive and irritating that I've set my challenge to use as little heating as possible. Haven't turned on the central heating OR the electric blanket yet, which I usually have done by early May. I've just been taking a shower as soon as I get home (and after my walk this week) to get really properly warm, then rug up in fuzzy-wuzzy pj pants, two pairs of knee-high bed socks and uggies, pj top, the thickest woollen jumper I own (Mum knitted it for me, so it's long enough to cover my bum), dressing gown and this huge fluffy, cuddly scarf. And it's working! I'm warm now, warm when I go to bed and get up the next morning... it'll be interesting to see how this impacts the electricity bill. Hmm.

Colin's birthday party night tomorrow! I haven't bought a present yet!




* roll with me here if you want any sympathy when you say it's hot ♥

STOP EVERYTHING.

IT'S TWENTY-ONE DEGREES.

*FLINGS THE HOUSE OPEN*

This is the first time the temperature has dropped below 26 in three days. It's beautiful. I'm so glad I live on top of a hill now and get a breeze to go with my cool change. Soon as I opened the window it was just sweet relief all over.

I wrote four pages today! After sitting on the last chapter for six months I'll have this one done in a weekend. What even is writing.

"Welcome to October, spring is in the air and as the days grow longer, the nights get warmer and we shed our winter coats."

UM. YOU KNOW I'M IN ADELAIDE, RIGHT, DAN? Where we're still in the middle of literally the shittiest weather we've ever had? Spring is a LIE I have always said this. Midway through December we'll get three days of pleasant weather, and that'll be spring, and then it'll be 40 degrees.

It was pleasant yesterday. Now it's raining again.

UGH I'm so over humidity. It's so humid now that the lawn at the little church yard where I have lunch is mouldy. The GRASS has MOULD growing on it. What is this madness?

For those unaware of Australian geography, Adelaide has 4000km of desert to the north-west, north and east, and only the Southern Ocean between us and Antarctica to the south. Basically our weather either comes from the desert, or from Antarctica, with not a whole lot of middle ground. If it's hot, it's dry. If it's wet, it's cold. It is not hot and wet at the same time because these things come from totally opposite directions and it FREAKS ME OUT AND MAKES THE GRASS MOULDY. Exceptions are when there's a cyclone happening around northern Australia, in which case the edge of it makes it down over the 4000km of desert and we get hot and wet at the same time, but that only lasts a day or two. This has been going for a WEEK now and I don't like it.

PARALLAX SCROLLING IS HARD. WHY AM I PUTTING MYSELF THROUGH THIS?

I've got the rough-as-guts working on desktop, but it breaks on mobile and I can't get the workaround working. It's supposed to basically just stop the funky scrolling effects, but it actually seems to stop everything, resulting in a) a completely static screen that looks like the front of the desktop only it won't scroll; b) a page with the four GIANT and unresized images just scrolling through with no text and then a whole lot of white space; or c) a black screen of nothing.

It really doesn't look like 40+ outside. It's cloudy, for one. I'll bet if it wasn't, we'd actually hit the forecast 44, but it's 3pm and I can't see it going up another three degrees. I did go outside to water my herbs, though. That was quite enough. The basil and the mint are loving it as expected, the coriander's carked it but not before going up to seed so I can at least plant them tomorrow when it's not hot°C, ditto the parsley, the lemongrass and chives keep getting in the way but they're happy, the oregano seems to be having a second coming after its long stalks died and is now short and bushy again, and the rosemary just needs a bigger pot. I think I've killed my studio fern. The bromiliad's happy, and has in fact got three shoots that look like they'll turn into flowers, but the fern is decidedly unhappy if not dead. I'll take it outside tomorrow and leave it there for a while, see if it perks up.

I'd thought of just getting a second iPod for the car, because I keep forgetting to take it with me when I leave the house and also it only fits half my music collection on it. Except that there's only one green gen 3 Nano on ebay and it costs $80 and is in pretty bad nick. So. Screw that idea. I was expecting them to be a dime a dozen.

I'm just procrastinating on the parallax scrolling. Ugh.

38, 39*, 40**, 41, 42... Just as we were thinking, well, we've had a few spikes but no holy-shit-heatwaves yet... HELLO SUMMER. Meanwhile Sydney's getting pummelled by fricking tornadoes and hailstones the size of golf balls. What the actual shit. Amazingly we're not on fire, but eh, early days yet.

I'm not going for runs right now. We get a cool change on Sunday though! Only 30, yessss. See if that sticks.

In other news, I got a hair cut yaaaaay. And a second ear piercing! Which I've been wanting to do for a while but never thought about it while I was actually at the hairdresser. Even less ouchy than I remember it being the first time around, and I don't remember it being particularly ouchy then, either. So that's cool.

It's quarter to eleven at night and it's still over 31 goddamn degrees.



* That was today's forecast, actually ended up being a touch over 41 so this bodes well.
** That's what yesterday said tomorrow's forecast was, but it's now up to 42. It was just nice how it was slowly counting up, degree by horrible degree. Now the bomsite's just decided 'nope screw it. all of the hot. aLL OF IT.'

Crows remain awesome and we're playing again next week WHOOOOO omgf I love those boys. So bad. I can't even.

They were interviewing Walker (this dude, who is the captain) after the game, straight after one of his teammates. He answered one question about said teammate with, 'I was told I'd be on straight after Danger and he kept going for, like, an HOUR. Can talk the wool off a sheep, that bloke.'

LOVE. SO MUCH LOVE. And his kick to Charlie Cameron and the long bomb from 55 out that probably ended up going like 70m alkjdsghalksjdg I just. I can't. God I hope we can take this to the Grand Final. They deserve it. They SO very deserve it.

...It's finals season, guys, expect more of this for at least as long as the Crows are in the finals. WHICH WILL BE THE NEXT THREE WEEKENDS JUST YOU WATCH.

Also I got my cheque yesterday for my Flinders Street monies, yay! Head for the bank on Friday and get that deposited, that'll be nice.

And the weather is springy! It's been mid-20s for the past couple of days, but going back to winter this week because that's what an Adelaide spring is. Still, I'm enjoying it while it's on. Sat in the sun and read a book this morning and went for coffee with Mum, Colin and Laura in the afternoon, at a little Hills café with a creek at the back, lovely. AND THEN CROWS omfg what a good day.

BUT THAT'S NOT ALL. Colin and Laura gave me my birthday present! WHICH IS A 1985 HENSCHKE HILL OF GRACE. It's an expensive red wine. Oh man it's beautiful. I'm going to invite them both over to drink it with me and make something perfect to go with it. What an amazing foodie birthday this has been 8DDD