So, SOOO proud of my cuzin Kate!

My cousin Kate has been in the CFA (volunteer firefighters) for about 5 years - I think - and has fortunately stayed safe and well while trying to defend Kinglake and other towns on Black Saturday.

She and some of her CFA chums have started putting photos on Facebook of the devastation they've seen over the past 10 days or so - the blackened roads, bush hillsides burned down to the very soil, the remains of homes, shops, vineyards, vehicles.

It's grim reading until you find the signs of hope, recovery, and support from the rest of the country to help people rebuild. From 'here's one we saved' to 'here's Australia's Prime Minister saying thankyou' to our fireys.

That's Kate in the photo, btw, under Kevin Rudds bunny ears ... truly.

At last - our new home!

I booked Monday off so that I could repent at leisure with my hangover - which was, much to my joy, nowhere near as fierce as expected.

Once I'd consumed a (still somewhat necessary) fried brekkie, I thought I'd get creative with the camera and show you our new house. From the outside, it's very much (in the words of my brilliant friend Paula) 'the house you drew as a kid - a big square front with a door and 4 windows'. But with more charisma, we think.

The outside piccies are from when we had snow (it's all gone now), but the inside ones show you what our place is like now that our donated furniture has arrived, courtesy of Andy and Christine from over the road, who are moving in together and were getting rid of some of their surplus. That New Inn is better than Freecycle, I tell ya. I have to say I've never had quite such a grownup house before, and I reckon I kinda like it. Before you go shaking your head at how domestic I've become, however, I need to point out that most of our finishing touches - the rugs on the sofas, the mirror over the fireplace, hallstand beside the front door, and the giant toaster in the kitchen - are in fact the brainchild of my lovely husband. Who knew he'd turn out to be such a domestic godliness? (Let's see how long it lasts!)

Birthday bliss

I love my birthday, but I don't have a great track record of sharing it with people. In fact, the last time I tried holding a 'do' was my 30th, and several people forgot to show up (more fool them - it was a scorching summer's day, we went to Luna Park, and I brought party pies and fairy bread and we went on the rides and finished up at the Espy, drinking wine on the front balcony, watching the sun set over Port Phillip Bay. Hurrah!).

Birthdays in England are a bit weird because they happen in winter here, but I figured 35 was worth some song and dance, so I made some plans this year.

And we had a lovely day - a very low key, eaty-drinky 'do just what you please' afternoon at one of my favourite free houses, run by mine excellent host Ollie the Irishman. There was rugby on the telly (which suited Ants), Aunt Sally in the backyard (It's a game - a uniquely Oxford thing - don't ask me to explain...) and several large chickens, live music and a spot of trivial pursuit - just the kind of celebration I had wanted. There was much nattering among friends, good food and drink, and nobody forgot to turn up. It did start me thinking though, just how much my world has changed since that party at 30. Mikko was still alive (he didn't show because he was working, but at least he didn't forget!), Ants wasn't even a distant blip on my horizon, and I was desperately looking forward to finishing my masters and saving up for my 'strictly 12 months' adventure in the UK. I had never sung solo in a pub, never re-enacted in a real castle and wished I could work out how to use emission factors for calculating greenhouse gases.
Back then, I knew not a soul among the 20 people who turned out in force yesterday. They're no substitute for the family and friends with whom I've shared so much history at home (and who were also out in droves sending birthday wishes by phone and facebook, email and text). But I felt rather privileged and well loved, and as I curled up with Anthony's arm around my shoulders last night, my last thought was that it had been a very happy birthday indeed.

Support your local CFA

Facebook has details of a 'Buy a CFA Volunteer a Beer' event and fundraiser, hosted by 'grateful victorians'.

Do it, people. They are amazing men and women.

The worst of all fears

All worst fears have been realised. February 7, 2009 wasn't as bad as Ash Wednesday: it was three times worse. Latest expectations are for more than a thousand homes destroyed, and up to 300 people dead.

I've spent much of my spare time this week glued to my laptop, poring over news sites to try to understand what's happened at home.

It's been a rollercoaster week: enormous pride in my cousin Kate, a CFA (Country Fire Authority) volunteer and, in the eyes of many, one of 7000 heroes who tried to stand between Saturday's firestorm and people's lives and homes. She was stationed for 24 hours straight at Kinglake, where maybe 700 homes are gone, and at least 40 people have died.

Monday brought the first shock, as word filtered around re-enactment circles of people who had fought for their homes - not all of them successfully. But at least everyone we knew is still alive.

Then on Tuesday, flicking throught The Age Online, up popped a familiar face, a former colleague, above a link to a list of those 'missing, feared dead'. Professor Rob Pearce, head of sleep disorders at the Austin, where I was PR Manager, died fighting for his home. His wife and adult son survived. He was a brilliant doctor, and great craic as media 'talent', with his untameable hair that made him look every inch a scientific genius, and his knack for describing bleeding edge medical stuff in terms anyone (even the Herald Sun) could understand. Vale Rob.

Wednesday, and the invariable near miss stories are filtering through now. My dad doesn't know if one of his patients is okay. My stepmother's nephew spent hours sheltering in a creek bed, her son turned back by a road block. More relief.

The tiniest details in the paper prompt floods of tears. Emergency shelters put out a plea for dark coloured clothing, suits and dresses - because people who escaped with only the clothes on their backs are struggling to find 'suitable' clothing to wear to the funerals of their relatives, friends and neighbours.

I've stopped reading the news at work - I mustn't cry at my desk in front of my team. But every day I wear the earrings I bought at the St Andrews Market, when Ants and I went home to be married.

CFA Volunteers have been taken off the grisly job of searching homes for bodies- too often, the ruins they're sifting through are in their own town, their own street. It was too much.

Once the coroner's staff have been through, houses are tagged with red and white ribbon, indicating the all clear, or blue and white crime scene tape. But outside my mum's place, a victim of a hit and run lies dead in scorching sun for half a day because there are no coroners' staff available: they're all up at the fires. There's hysteria, as the dead girl's friends come down to where her body lies on the road, and traffic is backed up for hours.

The whole of Marysville is one big crime scene. The town is no more: residents were bussed back there this week to see the ruins for themselves, understand what happened to their homes, but no-one was allowed off the bus. Police say it could take weeks to sift through the remains of more than 120 houses (just 5 still stand, they say), and remove the bodies of perhaps 100 people - 20% of the town's population. I cannot comprehend loss on that scale.

I feel helpless, I want to go home and do something, not just give money. I want to be able to stop talking about it: I don't want the sympathy of my colleagues at work. I'm still one of the lucky ones: everyone I love is still alive. So many can't say that much.

Welcome to Murrayfield

Ants has wanted to see Scotland play at Murrayfield since before he ever set foot in the UK. So this year, Santa made it happen and on Sunday morning we carefully defrosted the car and nudged her out of our snowed in street and onto the motorway towards Heathrow.

Saturday's sunshine had cleared most of the roads, and the trip in was easy, as was the flight to Edinburgh. It feels strange to think that somewhere that feels so culturally far removed from southern England is just an hour away by air (agreed, NOT the most environmentally friendly way to travel!).I love Edinburgh and I can't believe it's taken us this long to get back here.We bussed in to the ground, bought baguettes stuffed with beef and gravy and our first pints. I needed a scarf, Ants was already wearing his Scotland rugby jersey. The man searching bags asked if that was a recipe for disaster in a relationship: we said not as much as one of us being Aussie and the other a Kiwi. Lacking a lighter, Ants found that every Scot he asked was more than happy to oblige, 'good sir - and good luck!'

The Welsh were already singing. It was just like going to a packed house at the 'G: a family friendly environment where women and kids are welcome, as unlike going to the soccer as could be. As the stadium grounds began to fill us, anticipation grew, as did the retinue of silly hats. Check these out!HRH Princess Anne shook hands with both sides, there were fireworks and bagpipes and huge jets of flame, an airforce flyover and the match began. We got donuts and hot chocolate at half time and Wales won, in part because Scotland knocked out two of their own players, one chap going unconscious while commiting a foul. 'I can't give him a yellow card when he's knocked out' said the ref into his mike, 'but his replacement can't come on for 10 minutes'.After the match we joined the thronging thousands who walked into the centre of town, about 2 miles away. Ants' feet got sore so we bargained with a pedicab for a fare, and then realised we had no idea where the place was that we'd agreed to be let out. Found our bearings, found a bar with a restaurant at the back, tucked into smoked haddock soup, followed by haggis neeps and tatties in whisky cream sauce for the lad, and 'Chicken balmoral' (chicken stuffed with haggis, wrapped in bacon, whisky cream sauce. mmm. calories.) for me. Finished with 12 yr old whisky and a brisk walk down to the bus through a light shower of snow, vowing to come back soon.Sadly, we nearly didn't leave. After an exciting few minutes going through security alongside the Welsh rugby team (it's not often people make Ants look small, but several of these fellas did!), we arrived at our gate, took our seats... and there we sat for the next 3 hours. The light snow had gotten heavier, and by the time the de-icer got to our plane, the runway had been closed. 'Cooped up with a bunch of pissed rugby fans' is not the best way to spend 3 hours, and even Ants' patience was stretched by the time we finally took off.

We finally made it home at 2.30 am, knackered, but still vowing it was worth every minute.

Another Ash Wednesday?

I was nine, when Ash Wednesday raged across the state a day after my birthday. I remember scorching hot classrooms with the windows open, and gusts of smoke and warm cinders blowing in on the hot wind, sent down the Ferntree Gully Highway from Mount Dandenong. I remember my dad in his study next morning, glued to the radio, saying Cockatoo had been razed to the ground, and that I didn't realise he didn't mean a native bird, but a whole town. I remember being asked to choose clothes and shoes and toys to give to kids whose houses had burned down, and my mum volunteering at the shelter where hundreds of people now slept.

In Warrandyte, we grew up with fire plans and a wary eye on days where there was a hot northerly wind in summer. My mum has stood on the roof of our house stuffing the downpipes with rags so she can fill the gutters with water, and has put out spotfires in the garden from burning embers carried on the wind. I was 17 and raged with helplessness from a mile up the road, because they wouldn't let me across the bridge at the Yarra to help her.

Melbourne's outskirts are burning again today, and people have died and they say there could be hundreds of homes burned. Towns that once marked stages in my journey as I drove from Mitchelton at Nagambie to Melbourne and 'home' will now be remembered for Black Saturday, February 7: Broadford, Kilmore, Wallan, Clonbinane... and others from 'the back road' down to Mum's: Whittlesea, Kinglake, Hursbridge. They're all in trouble tonight, along with Gippsland and Horsham and other places too.

Folks here in England can't possibly understand the concept of a fire so out of control that it's all you can do to get the people out. It can race up a hillside in seconds, gut a house in minutes. Flames roar 70 feet high and generate their own 100km an hour winds as they suck all the oxygen from the air.

A couple of years ago, one such fire burned out an area the size of Portugal in the high country - although few if any lives were lost. This time, the area is much, much smaller, but the results are much, much worse...

I don't much feel like watching the rugby any more.

More Snow

Another day, another 6 inches of snow, another snowball fight among the busdrivers (this one looked to be 'boys vs girls') at the bus Depot.

It snowed all night, then half the day too, and work sent home all staff from outlying villages after lunch, then closed the office half an hour early, so the 10 of us that were left could all go home too. Ants couldn't get the car out, so didn't make it to work.

There's a layer of ice under the snow now, making pavements slick and 'slippy' (another quaint english turn of phrase). Reminds me of those winters in Finland, Belgium and Luxembourg, and I'm a bit amazed at how just a week of this kind of weather can transform the landscape and make the ice and snow feel so entrenched. It's still beautiful though - specially today, now that the sun is shining.

Ants and I are hoping we can still get up to Edinburgh on Sunday - we've tickets for the rugby, Scotland vs Wales. Anthony has wanted to see Scotland play at Murrayfield ever since we've been here. Keep yer fingers crossed!

Remember the blitz....

Some wag at work (you know who you are... Matt!) forwarded this around at work today after we'd all valiantly trudged in through the snow. How frightfully British! Hahaha!

Meanwhile, back in Melbourne...

... they're enduring a second week of temperatures above 40oC (that's 104F in the old money, Ms Kim!). Trainlines have buckled, and powercuts are becoming common, as people all turn on their air-con at once and suck more power from the grid than it can supply.

Our CFA (country fire authority) are an amazing bunch of men and women. Virtually every one of them is a volunteer, and they do an amazing job: my cousin Kate and her boyfriend are among them. The fire in this clip ran right up to the edge of my aunt and uncle's place outside Woodend. All are okay, but it burned out 120 hectares and needed 40 fire trucks and 'elvis' the water crane/helicopter to get it under control. Kate's fella was one of the 'firies' called up from Melbourne - it feels dead weird to be reading about all this when outside my window there's still a layer of snow!

They're saying it could be the worst summer in years for fires. I hope 'they' are bloody wrong.

Real Snow!

You've probably seen all the media coverage by now - a mere 4 inches of snow and Heathrow was closed and in chaos, the tube shut down (I don't understand how snow makes the underground trains stop running!). Our head office in London has been deserted all week - and people have been 'unable to leave their homes' because the snow was a foot deep.

It's possibly the funniest thing I've heard since I first came here and discovered that a 3 hr train ride to York would take 5.5 hrs, because of... wait for it... "leaves on the line". Yep. In a country full of deciduous trees, many of them planted along the railways. Who'd have thought that would lead to leaves on the line? Or that it would cause so much chaos.

Here in Witney, we'd been wondering what they were moaning about - after all, we've had an inch or two most days here, and surely a couple of inches more can't make that much difference...

This morning, the phone rang at 7.30am , it was Matt, one of my colleagues, letting me know he'd be late because the buses aren't running. I jumped out of bed and ran to the window and saw.... real snow! Also up to a foot deep in places, so exciting!

We immediately arranged carpooling for as many people as possible, and soon after Matt, Brenda and I packed B's car with shovels and a hi-vis vest and set off for work. We were late, but otherwise all was well. And the bus drivers at the depot at the end of our street were having a snowball fight - haha! - then at 8am they all climbed aboard and started trundling down the newly gritted roads.

So I still don't understand what the Londoners were on about - I reckon these English folk are just soft. (and obsessed with only planning for the sunny climate they'd like to have, not the weather they do have!)

The roads were nearly empty and it was SO pretty - quiet and still, the trees and fences coated with white powdery fluff, reminding me of driving through Lapland on holidays past. Look....

Our street, above, and our backyard

The driveway at work and, below, the carpark first thing in the morning...By midmorning, the carpark had sprouted a new population of snow folk...and fauna

Ants in uniform

I would have said I am the absolute last person to be a sucker for a fella in uniform, but I confess, the first time I saw Ants in his policeman's kit, I blushed.

(All of you that immediately thought 'mmmm - handcuffs!' can shut up right now. What I was really scared of was the gun and being seen snogging a copper in public).

When he moved to Warwick Castle, his work 'uniform' of medieval shirt, jacket and hose (tights, to the uninitiated!) was definitely cool.

Now he's joined St John Ambulance - and check out my husband the jolly green giant who glows in the dark!