Try not to let it consume you....

I know that the bushfires seem to be all that anyone talks about these days, but I thought you might appreciate a personal perspective, along with a little (long) story.....

On Sunday the 8th of Feb, I posted about the night of the fires, and some of those that I knew that were affected. As a quick update, I am pleased to let you know that the horses were found miraculously safe and (not so) well, but have now been transferred to (literally) greener pastures to heal.

My mother is safe, though she was on tenterhooks with her bags packed for 3 weeks, ready to leave if she had to.

And Jack...well, there is a story....

A bit of history to fill in the picture:
Jack and I had been together - on and off - for around 4 years. He is 10 years my senior. I am totally and utterly consumed with the man. Always have been. Don't know if I always will be. He is what one would term a "Commitmentphobic". After 4 years, I wanted the diamond ring, white picket fence, 2.5 children, and the dog named spot. He said he did, but never did anything about it. I wanted a future vision - and we nearly had it. I introduced him to Flowerdale. I had been keeping my eye on Flowerdale for the past 6 or so years. It was always my dream, and I shared it with him. We would go there on Sunday drives, and slowly he warmed to the idea of buying a weekender there. And that was the turning point. When it came to us making the offer on a property, he couldn't do it. We broke up.

A month later, he bought it on his own. Was I shattered? You bet. Did I deal with it? I had to.

He worked on that block of land. He worked his arse off. It was the first time he had ever invested in anything - physically and emotionally. It was symbolic. Yes, we were back on talking terms during this time, but talk about Flowerdale was taboo - I couldn't go there, it was too painful.

Then the fires came and razed the land, and cleared all that had gone before it.

I always said that I would never go back there - not unless Jack and I were together again and it wasn't just his, but ours. But last Saturday, I just needed to go. And so I went.

And now, the experience of driving through the devestation to get to Flowerdale:

It sounds cliche, but it really is indescribable. The photo's and stories you have seen in the media do not come close to what it's really like.

We drive through Whittlesea, stop to get our wristband (they are still only letting locals up there), pass the roadblock, drive around the corner...then bam, there it is:

Nothing. One minute there is something, then there is nothing. No colour. No leaves. No sound.

It's not long before I see the first brick letterbox to signify that there used to be a house on that site. It draws my eyes to the background to see what remains of that house. Maybe there is a chimney, most certainly there is corrugated iron. That's all that's left of the houses. The Fire was so hot that everything literally melted and evaporated if it wasn't concrete or iron.
Not far down the road, I see the first of many Australian Flags that now fly proud outside many properties. It's like they have replaced the police tape with the flag to say "it's ok, I'm still here and I'm ok".

We pass the Kinglake General Store - well, what is left of it. I need to take a breath, knowing we are on the homestretch to Flowerdale now, and I'm about to see a stretch of road I no longer recognise. Funnily enough, I do still recognise it, I know each bend and turn in the road. I know what each house that has burnt down used to look like. We round the corner and there is a massive green oasis - somehow the nursery and it's surrounding trees seem unscathed as if it was covered with a dome when The Fire stormed through. I can only imagine that the owners put all of the sprinklers on and hoped for the best. The sign out the front reads: "Come in, we are open!". Like anyone will be planting pansies this weekend! Still, it's reassuring to see normality in such a disrupted, not normal environment.

One thing I can't stop noticing along the side of the road is the metal safety barriers. There are notches in them. Dints from where trees came down across the road. Each dint represents another tree, and another barrier that stopped so many trying to get out.

There are some houses still standing, but it only adds to the confusion. Why did that one survive? You try and make sense of the direction and behaviour of The Fire, but you just can't. It was indiscriminate in what it consumed.
We hit Flowerdale, and turn into to Jacks property. I am glad that I am there, and I get out of the car and walk up the hill on my own. It's so quiet. The air smells thick with ash. I reach the top of the hill to look at the view that I so often dreamt about. I brace myself thinking : "This is the moment, this is when the grief will hit me". To my surprise, it's ok. In fact, it's more than ok - it's still beautiful. It's just in sepia tone now.

I thought that I would cry when I first saw all the destruction, but it's literally so unbelievable that you can't relate to it, you can't get it. You need to sit with it a bit to understand just what has happened. And you need to appreciate the good stuff - the changes it has made to people and their priorities.

That night Jack and I sat under the stars, in the still of the night. Glass of wine in hand, sitting in silence, I almost felt bad that I was so comfortable. But I didn't. Jack and I were sitting side by side, and we were at Flowerdale. For the first time in many months, I felt like I'd come home. Despite the damage to my two loves (Jack and Flowerdale), we were together, and perhaps the damage that has been done can now grow into something more beautiful than what it was....

Silver Creek before...

Silver Creeek after.....

The fire moved with such force and speed that you can see the direction it moved in by the direction of the leaves on the trees. It's like they have been mummified that way now. There are also saplings that have been bent to the ground in the same direction. Bizarre...

What is left of the cottage. We figured out that the cottage would have burnt before the tree fell on it.

The view from the top of the hill is still beautiful - just not so green anymore.

You can quote me on that!

Quite often MD, Al and I are together, and someone says something stupidly funny. Sometimes it's also stupidly rude, so we agree it's out of bounds for the bloggisphere. Sometimes it's not just funny, but it makes you think: "Could that be true?"
Either way, more often than not, we chorus together: "I'm blogging about that one!"

So, here are a few I thought could be opened up for discussion and comment:

MD: As most of you know, MD is off on a trip to Sweden shortly. When I asked her recently why she had cut down on the wine, started eating way too much salad, and begun getting up at stupid o'clock in the morning to exercise, she simply said: "Because Deb, you can't be fat in Sweden". Being that MD is far from fat, I really do wonder if there is anyone under a size 8 in Sweden. I mean, does she really have a point?

Al: After spending the day at his local drinking establishment in the upper end of town, Al came to work complaining how it had been taken over by gay men. I reckon I have a pretty good gaydar, and (obviously) Al is gay, however, I still naively asked him how he knew everyone there was gay. His response: "Because Deb, every one of them owns an Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirt, G-Star jeans and Prada sunglasses". Can this be true?

Then there is another friend of mine who recently said to me (about my ex Jack): "Sometimes his head is so big, he can't get it through the car door". Seriously, did she make that up, or have any of you heard that before?

And here is one I thought was common, but apparently my family made it up. When something fits really well (like when tightly squeezing a piece of furniture into an alcove and it has no room to spare on either side) I would say: "Fits like a bum in a bucket".

So, the list could go on, but I ask you my good friends, what are your quotes?

Spare a thought

A serious post this time folks....

Today is a very sad day for Victorians. History was made yesterday in more ways than one, as Melbourne had it's hottest day on record and bush fires raged throughout the state.
Waking up to see the carnage this morning was heartbreaking. Still, we must be grateful for what we do have, and as the day unfolded into night, I began to realise the importance of friends, and the unimportance of so many other things in your life.

What was supposed to be a 40th birthday celebration for a friend, turned into a strange situation as we all tried not to think of what was happening outside of our safety bubble of the inner city. We drank, we played lawn bowles. We went through the motions of what one does to celebrate a birthday, but we just couldn't be there in spirit. There were several of us who had friends or family that were in danger, and there wasn't a lot we could do except for make phone calls, check the CFA website, and wander into the clubhouse to check the news every half hour.
It seems we all were affected in one way or another.
My mother was alone in her house in the Yarra Valley, and was facing the decision of staying or going.
The wife of the party boy had horses in Kinglake that she couldn't get to.
And Jack had recently purchased a property in Flowerdale which was now under threat.

We all went home at about 10pm, but there was no way I could sleep. Jack came back to my place and we stayed up all night. Still checking the CFA site, but trying not to think about what was happening. We talked. We talked and talked and all of the anger and resentment that we held against one another from the breakdown of our relationship faded away, as we realised that there are far more serious things to waste energy on.

And as I cried watching the destruction on the news this morning, I sent up a prayer of gratitude. My mother is safe and well, the horses have been sighted, and Jack was back, if only for a short while.

An Animal In The Bed

So, as most of you are probably aware, when you break up with someone, there are a few practical matters that one must deal with. One of the biggies is: "What do I now do with all this room in my bed"?
It's been almost 4 months since I broke up with Jack, and during this time, I've had to experiment with different ways of dealing with the extra space. At first, I put a pillow lengthways next to me, blocking out "his" side of the bed. Like a "do not enter" sign - going to the other side was too dangerous to contemplate. This was also handy, as it doubled as a substitute body also. If I slept on my side and draped my arm across the pillow, I could almost imagine I was nuzzled into his arm pit and had my arm draped across his chest...
I then realised this wasn't healthy and I needed to confront this conundrum. So, I slept diagonally - almost willing myself to utilise the the space, like, "Yeah, I really needed a queen size bed all to myself, I don't know how I dealt with having so much room taken up by an extra body". This was actually working quite well until the cat realised what was going on. All of a sudden, the cat and I were fighting over a queen size bed like it was a vacant block of land in Sydney priced under half a million dollars. I know what your thinking - it's a cat, how hard can it be, right? You haven't met my cat. She's big. Not like, panther big, but like, 7kg domestic cat big (now, before you go calling the RSPCA to report me on overfeeding my cat, I can assure you her vet has confirmed she is not overweight, just big) . She is also a princess and used to getting whatever she wants (ok, my fault really...mental note, do not substitute cute fluffy animals for children and then spoil them because they are your only child). So, now that Jack has gone, she has suddenly realised that she no longer needs to be delegated to the end corner of the bed near my feet, and that she can now sleep next to me (near my chest), where it's cozy and warm. I actually don't have a problem with this when we go to bed, because she curls up all cute like and purrs close to my ear. It's kind of snugly actually. What I have a problem with, is when she wakes me at 2am, because she's realised that rather than sleeping in a cute little ball, she wants to stretch out lengthways. Back legs down, front legs outstretched over head. What's the problem you ask? She doesn't do this in a top-of-the-bed to bottom-of-the-bed fashion, she does it perpendicular - across the bed. That's close to a meter of 7kgt cat, monopolising my bed!
I think I'll be delegated to the bottom corner of the bed soon.
Joni lied. The bed is not too big and the frying pan...well, it is a little wide....