Summer of discomfort

Today, I was intending to write a post about how lucky we have been here in Perth over the summer. While the rest of Australia is undergoing terrible disasters, we have continued to live our lives with no disruption. We were threatened with a cyclone a week ago, but that blew itself out over the Indian ocean and we carried on blissfully. We took our daily walk around the lake where we saw these clouds which were a remnant of our non-existent cyclone.



We took our babies to the beach



where we watched the birds sitting contentedly on their rock.



Such was their, and our, complacency that it would take a very big wave to ruffle our feathers.



Then we woke this morning to the terrible news that almost 50 (and rising) homes have been destroyed by bushfire on the outskirts of Perth. The fierce winds which have been fanning the flames have been generated by Cyclone Yasi which devastated so much of Queensland. So it seems that we here in Perth have not been spared and one wonders how much more mother nature is going to throw at us in this summer of discomfort.