This weekend has been a real shocker!

We have been getting record highs in temperature 43oC locally but heat was all we suffered with, many other Australians have not been so lucky. It's been a tragic weekend, in Victoria over 80 deaths have been confirmed and 640 houses have been lost due to bushfires, more aptly described as wildfires. Whole communities have been devastated. In NSW (where I live) there have been around 50 fires burning around the state. We have not been affected not even the scent of smoke hit us today. There was smoke around on Friday night from a fire about 40 minutes drive away and a slight smell last night. The heat has been the cause of many of these fires but there is evidence that many have been deliberately hit - a man suggested that when arsonists are caught they should be tied to a tree in the path of a fire. This man was livid, though lucky because firefighters were able to stop a deliberately lit fire about 4 metres (approx 4 yards) from his house.

My Uncle and Aunt are volunteer firefighters, last week they both were out working on burnbacks, fighting fires, one would crawl into bed after a 12 - 15 hour shift and the other would crawl out to do it themselves. They even did 15 hours days down in Melbourne. People just like them are risking their lives trying to save properties, lives and wildlife, I am very thankful for their selfless contributions. To think that others think they have the right to put lives and communities at risk is utterly disgusting, we need tougher punishment for them. I caught part of a news story where a 19 year old man was being charged with arson, he was actually a volunteer firefighter and lit fires in the hope that his team would be called out. How astounding is that?

On the homefront, we have been having lots of electrical equipment troubles lately, the stove stopped working a couple of weeks back, the car cost $1500 in repairs after playing up at New Year. This weekend it has been the washing machine and fridge. The washing machine threw it's belt, it's happened a couple of times before and we had bought a new belt but decided to wait til it happened again before installing it. Basically get as much use out of the old belt as we could, it had developed splits going around it. I think the heat and the fact that the door of the fridge has been found to be ajar lately got to the fridge. Supposed to be frostfree but it had inch thick frost that took ages to defrost. It started chilling when I turned it on but took hours to do so. I tossed everything out seeing as fresh milk had curdled, put bottles full of ice in to aid in cooling and just before bed took milk from the esky, putting it into a crisper drawer and surrounding with giant blocks of ice. David was blaming the kids and I for not closing the fridge properly but a few minutes after he put ice water from the freezer into it I found the door not properly closed - the temp went up 10 degrees in that time. He swears he checked it was closed so we now we know the seal isn't the best. I made sure it was properly closed before going to bed and woke up to find the temp was on the high side of safe chilling temp. I start another temp job this month and it looks like I'll be using my pay to get a new fridge. Brand new - no more second hand ones for us. We've had 2 in the last 3 years (one free, the other bought). We bought a new one with wedding money 20 years ago, decided it was too small and was looking ugly with rust so we sold it on to be used in the canteen at soccer 2 years ago. It's still running strong.