Real Tart

Yesterday – Friday afternoon – the temperature went over 40C and then there was a big storm, the thunder shaking everything in the house, making the windows and crockery rattle, the roof timbers creak and groan. There were only a few drops of rain but Four and I watched the stabs of lightning and could smell the burnt air.
It’s rare to have normal sheet lightning here, it’s usually the forked stuff and boy does it spear down to the ground. Four said, “the sky is cracking open,” which is as good a way of putting it as any.
Of course, this started several fires in the nearby bush and the fire people have been out all night and today trying to contain them around here.
One of the fires, which is apparently out of control at the moment, is four miles from our house, up the mountainside. They’ve closed the Blue Mountains National Park, which is a bit worrying, as we live in it. Fire trucks have been meandering up and down the road outside our house all morning but I can’t smell much smoke and it’s not windy at the moment, so we’ll see.
Apart from that it’s a normal Saturday so far – I took the nippers swimming this morning – Six has a lesson – and that was fine, though as we were getting back in the car there was an announcement over the tannoy saying, please evacuate the pool immediately. It was probably just some kid evacuating his bowels in the shallow end, I’d imagine.
Rest of the day we’re staying in, keeping out of the heat. Tonight The Bill is on and I try and watch it. In fact, on Friday night on the ABC it's all UK police shows. Midsomer Murders is on from 8.30 to 9.30, then it's Taggart until 10.30,  then Silent Witness until midnight. You could almost be in Chipping Sodbury.
Thing is, since they changed The Bill and put incidental music in it’s just not the same. Someone once said The Bill was half an hour about someone losing a watch, which is later found.
If only life were still that simple...

God, it’s hot. At 6am this morning it was 24C and today the fire service has issued their Catastrophic – or Code Red, as they’re calling it – warning for this area, with the temp here expected to peak at 42C. The advice in the paper and on TV is to leave our home this morning and go somewhere else. They’re suggesting a shopping centre, or a friend’s house – presumably somewhere in Europe.
Anyway, as I’m English I’ll simply carry on as usual and not panic and try to keep cool.
Four told me what to do in the event of an emergency, him and his pres-school friends having had a visit from the firemen and women from the local station (most of whom have kids at pre-school – Four told me, “Chantail’s mummy drove the fire truck.” or Fruck, as he calls it).
He got down on the floor with his hand over his mouth and crawled along like a soldier creeping towards enemy positions.
“You keep down,” he said, “then the smoke is on top of you.”
I said, what happens if the whole street is on fire, and he said, “Daaaad, you just keep crawling until you get far, far away.”
We’ll see.
In fact, Four’s pre-school is closing end of this year, which is a right pain because he loves going there and also it’s only a 10 minute drive away. They’re closing because the Federal government is insisting each centre has at least one university trained person and more ‘teachers’ per head of child then before. You can see the good intentions behind this but as there is no free pre-school here it means those centres that stay open will charge more (currently it’s around $57 a day which in pound terms is about four pence, errm, I think that’s right, the dollar acting like Popeye while the quid is more like Olive Oil, or whatever the skinny one’s name was.), and others will close down completely, so costing us all more and more to get our kids in a centre that is not nearby.
So, from January I have to move him about 30 minutes away which is going to really bugger up my mornings. Of course, I could take him out altogether but he has only another year and then he’ll be at Six’s school, and most of the other pre-school children will go there too, so it will be good for him.
Okay, I’m just going to hose myself down.
With water, madam.

Everywhere outside the cities in Australia there are bushfire roadside warning signs, usually with a pointer on them that tells you on any particular day the warning level - low, medium or high.
Now they’ve changed that, after those 150 or so people lost their lives in one weekend last year in the fires in Victoria. The top level is now tagged Catastrophic.
Today is over 40C here and we’re on the big C, and it’s not even summer yet. All this week it’s been in the high 30s. Even at night it’s barely dropping below 25.
I went with Four to swimming lesson this morning and the outdoor pool looked like it was sizzling. We were in the indoor pool so it wasn’t so bad, what with the air conditioning and all that.
Yesterday I was waiting for Six to come out of class. You go and sit on benches outside the class rooms, under a large canopy, and have a gossip with the mothers. As we were sitting there a Lace Monitor came strolling by. These things are about three feet long and look like dragons. I’d only seen one before and I tell you, first time it scares just about everything out of you. In fact they’re not that dangerous unless you corner them. Some of the little kids started baiting it and eventually one of the mothers, a large farmer’s wife with strong arms, picked it up by the tail and led it thrashing its head, trying to get her hand, and heaved it onto the garden where it scurried off with a rustle and crash through the undergrowth. Some of the women didn’t even stop the gossiping.
One thing I’ve discovered since I’ve been here is that Six doesn’t get invited for play at many people’s houses. One of the women told me it’s because the women’s husbands would mind. That’s the thing out here, they are very conservative, actually I’d call it stupid, but there you go. I feel sorry for Six because most of his friends get to play with their mates after school. But there’s not much I can do about it, other than suggest we meet at the park where they can all see what I’m doing with my hands, but even that is hard because, to be honest, it’s too bloody hot to be out and nobody ever goes to the park – they prefer to shut themselves in air conditioned cocoons.
It worries me because I don’t want the boys to miss out on the early friendship bonding sessions, but it’s hard to work out what to do.
That aside, I’ve been doing well with Mr Wolf this week. I also decided to start selling all the vintage watches I’d accrued via Ebay. I eventually worked out that I wanted to concetrate on watches made in England which somewhat limits the choice, so that’s no bad thing. Someone at school told me the problem with selling anything through Ebay is that you spend most of your life at the Post Office sending off boxes, which is true.
Still, I’ve sold most of them for more than I bought them for, so that’s good. With some of the proceeds I bought a Smiths W10 which is a black dialled watch issued to the UK armed forces back between the 1940s and 1970s (when Smiths went bust because Margaret Thatcher thought it best to supply John De Lorean with money for cocaine, er sorry, money to build sportscars in Northern Ireland). Anyway, it is a really fine watch, in this case made in 1968, and if you know anything about English watch making you’ll know the Swiss learnt most of their skills from the English – no, it’s true. The W10 is very similar in movement design to Swiss Jaeger LeCoultre watches, which start today at 10,000 pounds. I’ve got a Jaeger I bought back 10 years ago and I have to say I prefer the Smiths. Here's a link which shows you what it looks like: http://www.mwrforum.net/forums/showthread.php?t=28875
Right then, I’m off to take a cold shower.

I’m chuntering on with Mr Wolf. I have to get it finished, that’s completely finished, by December 18 because the nippers break up from school then for their summer holidays and really I’ll get no work done for two months. So the clock is ticking, which funnily enough is the way I like it.
I would have had it finished by now except for the end of term holiday a few weeks ago, and generally Six and Four are much more time-consuming. Of course, they know everything by now so endless hours are spent in arguments about how many trees there are in the whole wide world and if God can’t be bothered to show himself should we really be spending so much time talking about him. Sometimes I have no answers – or at least not good ones – for their questions. Now I understand why when faced with questions like, why did they build the Great Wall of China, some parents stumble about and then say, to keep the rabbits out.
Anyway, at school there are some right bitches. Most of the mothers are fine but there are a couple who seem to think they are descended from Royalty. They have those lemon-sucking faces and walk around in a haughty manner, though it doesn’t quite work in the Australian National Costume of thongs (flip-flops to you and me), sawed off shorts with floppy arses, tops which were once tent material, and hair-dos which haven’t been near a hairdresser – at least not one who can still see – for, oh I don’t know, maybe 16 years.
There’s a stick-insect blonde one who doesn’t talk to anyone unless they are what she considers true-blue Aussie. This counts me out, clearly, as I have no criminal record.
She’ll walk past me without so much as a nod. With great fanfare she went off to Perth with her husband and kids thanks to hubby's new job. He works in tarmacaddam, apparently, and is an expert in laying reverse cambers on the approach to roundabouts.
But soon she returned, minus the husband. I imagine he couldn’t put up with her either. Anyway, she’s got herself a little fluffy dog, presumably in place of the husband, and parades around with it like Marie-Antoinette.
Jerome’s wife, who speaks like Penelope Cruz, with twice the fire, sat down next to me the other day while we were waiting for the kids to come out of school and moved her shoulders about and said, “oh, you see, the fancy woman has got herself a fancy dog.”
“Oh yes,” I said, “and another thing-“
“No, no! Let me finish, for I have more to say.” She narrowed her eyes at me and whispered, “they are two bitches together.”
I had to laugh.

Every morning the silence is disturbed by the roar of jet engines as what the locals call ‘the post run’ comes over the mountain and heads for the RAAF base in the valley. From our house you can look down on the plane and its giant bat-like shape as its afterburners flare orange in the blue pre-dawn.
The plane is massive, a four-engined Lockheed of some sort in matt green. If you drive down to the base and stop around the perimeter fence (this is Australia, madam,) you can see it, heat still shimmering above its jets. On the rear fin it says, US Marine Corps. No one knows, or no-one will tell you, where it comes from every morning, and why.
As it happens, Jerome, ex-US Special Forces, was sent away for two weeks back to the Land of the Free by the company he now works for to be taught about new mass spectrometers.
These things can be explained to you eighteen times and you will still never understand what they are for or what they do.
Anyhow, Jerome was back this weekend and his daughter – who is in Six’s class – just had her birthday, so they held a party at the local leisure centre pool where I take the nippers for swimming lessons.
It was a good afternoon. Jerome, me, and the father who owns the 10 acre spread, got in the water and performed around 85 rescues of small children falling, giggling and screaming off the massive floating castle that stretched the whole length of the pool. A good time was had by all.
I noticed many of the mothers staring at my near naked body. I really must lose a few kilos, er, I mean, many kilos.
In the changing rooms afterwards I was chatting to Jerome and said, “you must be quite a good swimmer.”
“Oh yeah,” he drawled. “You know, they taught me to swim with my arms and legs tied.”
“Useful,” I muttered politely, wondering what could be the use of that.
When he came with the family to Australia, Jerome wanted to bring his gun collection – he was handed his first gun when he was three years old. Seriously, if I’d given Six a gun at three you wouldn’t be reading this now.
Apparently Jerome has 62 weapons, including his personal sniper rifle and another gun that can also launch a grenade from its snout. It seems when he left the Special Forces he just had to sign for them. And they wonder why America’s in trouble.
Before he stepped onto our sun-drenched shores he called the Aussie Customs people and explained the situation and the Customs bloke said, “Okay, tell me what you’d like to bring in.”
“I got as far as number five,” Jerome told me, “and then he said, whoa there fella.”
Three weeks ago I passed Jerome driving the other way. I turned around and followed him. I know, but sometimes I just do things like that. It’s exciting.
I followed him down to the town and out onto the road to Sydney. Just outside the town he turned left.
The Lockheed’s engines were roaring on the tarmac.

In Australia there are only three driving speeds – Go, Stop, and On Your Roof.
Honestly, more people get injured in car accidents per capita here than anywhere else in the world, well except for Afghanistan, but that’s mostly down to roadside bombs, and blokes blowing themselves and their Toyota up in crowded markets on their way to see 40 virgins (the after-life is probably the only place these days you’d find 40 virgins...).
We had a bit of rain last week and there were three big car accidents in two days between our house and the end of the road. Admiteddly it’s a winding road and it’s all downhill but it’s in good nick and wide.
The first day it was a mother from school who'd spun off the road in her Toyota Landcruiser and knocked over one gigantic wooden power pole. "I didn't want to put the brakes on," she told me the following day, "in case the car tipped over...". The cops were there and I had to stop to let the ambulance get out of the verge. An old cop who looked like Clint Eastwood ambled over to explain what was happening and said, "Makes you wonder how they do it, sometimes."
Crasher has got a new vehicle already, the Toyota being a write-off, what with its engine being in the back seat. The new car – which may mean little to you European folks – is a bright red Holden Clubsport R8. It looks like a fighter plane, has a 6.8-litre V8 engine and will reach a power pole in about four seconds. Good choice, madam.
The following day someone had come down the hill and on a wide sweeping bend had spun their car, hit the bank, gone through an electrified fence (bet that gave them a shock) and tipped the vehicle on its roof in the middle of the field. The same copper was there. I had to stop to let the fire engine reverse out of the field. The copper nodded to me and came and leaned in the window and said drily, "Hello again. Now, today we have a very impressive one indeed. Notice the upside down position."
"Yes, I see what you mean. But what happened to the goats?"
"My colleagues are trying to round them up.” He looked off in the distance to the smoky hills and said quietly. “Some have made it to town." He looked at me and smiled bleakly, “It seems one of them has run out in front of a bus, which hit a car.”

Just a quick one before I take Six to school.
They reckon it’s going to hit 40C today so it’s going to be a hot one.
The Melbourne Cup is on this afternoon. Melbournites have a day’s holiday so the women can dress up in silly hats and stumble around in tart-trotter shoes and watch some horses run around a track while sipping Chardonnay – that’s the women drinking, not the horses, you understand.
We went to the local park for the Teddy Bears’ Picnic on Saturday, which was a nice day out sitting on picnic rugs and eating party food. The park is on top of the mountain so there’s almost always a breeze, and there’s a 360 degree view over the lowlands. You can see Sydney’s towers 60km away poking out of the haze and on a day like today you’ll look and be glad you’re not there. The park’s about four acres of grassland and stretches of trees, including some massive English oaks which were planted when the original English settlers struggled up here, so they are massive and you can sit under them and try and keep cool. Funny to think those acorns came up the mountain in someone’s pocket, all the way from Chorlton-Cum-Hardly, or somewhere similar.
The park was where the residents of this small enclave gathered every morning during the last Emergency, as they call the bushfires, about eight years ago, to hear from the fire people shouting above the clatter of the water bombing helicopters that kept dumping thousands of tons of water on people’s houses. One woman told me she went out one morning and suddenly got swept half way up the street in a rush of water. This Sunday the Rural Fire Brigade held Fire Wise which is a gathering of residents who sit in white chairs under the oaks and listen quietly to experts tell us what to do in the event of another Emergency this year.
The chief fire officer reckoned he was a bit of a joker, only there was tension in the air and no-one laughed at his silly jokes as he told us that detection of sudden bushfires is better than it's ever been, they get there quicker ("but if you hear the sirens, then it's already too late for you to get out") and they have more equipment than ever before. The kickers is, conditions have never been this worrying before so we had better get ready. It didn’t help that on a giant screen they had a dramatic music-backed film loop of last year’s Victorian fires and the people panicking as the inferno raged and roared across valleys in seconds and engulfed houses as if they’d been doused in petrol.
The fire officer said, “if you think it’s safe to just leave and go to the next village, well, think again. You will die there too.” Nice.