Firestorm

Humidity reigns. It is February and as usual, the humidity is running rife. The air is stifling and the temperature is also running at 27 to 28 degrees most days. We Aucklanders, or Jafas (Just another f @#$@%& Aucklander), as the rest of the country like to call us, find this intolerable.

After night shift this morning, when the day staff were all coming in moaning because it was 23 degrees at 6am, I made a comment that at least we weren’t fighting fires or floods or losing our lives because of the weather!! It pays to keep a little perspective I feel. My comment didn’t go down that well and so I guess it is all relative. If we go around with our heads up our own arses, of course, every little glitch gives justifialble grumbles. Well that’s how it seems to me.

Anyhow, I am grateful that I can breathe in the air, hot and sticky as it may be. I am grateful that no one in my family has been killed in the dreadful firestorms in Victoria, Australia or in the floods in Queensland, Australia.

I am totally devastated and horrified for all those families that have lost not one, but in some cases many of their family. Some have lost partners and children as well as all their worldly goods and pets as well.

What is even more horrifying is that in all likelihood, some of these fires have been the result of the acts of arsonists. It is indeed mass murder. No different to the terrorist bombing on the London tube, that killed Shelley and 51 other dear souls.

There is a lot of pain and distress for all these families in the days ahead. The process of identification of their loved ones, is a painstaking and lengthy one. They will want to scream, why can’t we just go and get them now. It is the most horrendous thing, having to wait to confirm what you already know in your heart, to be true.

My thoughts and feelings lie with all those families – waiting.

My HB and I went to see Leonard Cohen a couple of weeks ago. It was amazing, inspiring and as close to heaven as I can get from this earthly place. I have been listening to a lot of his music and find it fits so many emotional states and reaches into my soul and revives it.

I will place Anthym, courtesy of a You Tube clip, on the site, for all those suffering and for all of us as we sometimes despair at the horrors in this, our world. It is a song of hope, and I hope that the words resonate for others and that the light will get in.


If you feel so inclined, you can contribute to the relief fund, under the Red Cross web site. It is painless and may make a little difference. It is at least something, some action of caring.

Arohanui
KGXX