07:00 It's Lois's turn to get out of bed and make the tea. I ask her to pick up my smartphone, which I put in the bathroom last night. I didn't want to switch it off overnight, in case there was a message or a call from our younger daughter Sarah, who lives in Perth, Australia, with Francis and their 7-year-old twins, Lily and Jessie. Their house is in Lower Chittering, to the north-east of Perth, an area which is currently threatened by a bushfire that started a couple of days ago in Wooraloo.
Lower Chittering (top left) is about 30 miles from Wooroloo, where the fire started
I look at the phone while Lois is downstairs : Sarah's house, which was out of the danger areas yesterday, is now in the orange area, which we think means they should be preparing to leave. The wind is now from the SSE, which puts them more in the firing line. I text Sarah and she says not to worry: they are safe and getting ready to leave the house. I don't ask any more questions - they have enough to do at the moment without having to send me the replies!
08:00 Lois and I have not showered for a few days, for various reasons: we felt too below-par on Sunday and Monday after our coronavirus astrazeneca vaccination, and on Tuesday we had to be downstairs early to greet Mark the Gardener. Oh dear! So it's time to get down and clean haha!
09:00 I look at my smartphone. The situation has changed again. Lower Chittering is now in an extended blue zone, which means that the situation is for the moment judged to be less serious than before.
I text Sarah again. She says they're feeling confused - they've now been re-classified as a blue zone, but on the other hand the authorities are still saying that the situation is serious and that winds with gusts at 35mph are expected: also the situation is constantly changing on the northern flank. She says she has been sick with worry for 2 days now - poor Sarah. We can guess how she feels - it's not just herself and Francis, but the twins that they have to think about.
flashback to December 25th: the family eat their Christmas dinner
in the scorching Australian heat
flashback to last Sunday: we talk with Sarah and the twins on zoom,
unaware of the bushfire that was about to threaten their home
12:30 Lunch followed by a nap in bed. At 3 pm we get another text from Sarah - she says they have been trying to stay awake: but that it is 11pm over there, and they keep falling asleep. She says they accept mine and Lois's offer to monitor any changes in the zones overnight and ring them if necessary.
16:00 We have a cup of tea on the sofa. Lower Chittering is still in the blue zone, but things look a bit more hopeful to us, although this is the first time we've had to monitor a bushfire: you don't tend to get them in the UK haha! The wind looks like it's been veering back more towards ESE, which could take them out of the firing line. I see that the temperature is due to be cooler tomorrow and Friday, and that rain is forecast for Saturday night and Sunday, which will be good.
16:30 I take a look at the medieval "Second Shepherd's Play", written between 1400 and 1450 - Lynda's U3A Middle English group is holding its monthly meeting on Friday on zoom, and this play is our current project.
The play centres on a character called "Mak the Thief" who steals a sheep from some neighbouring shepherds, and hatches a scheme with his wife to pass the sheep off as a baby sleeping in the cradle, when the shepherds come calling looking for it.
What crazy tricks they played on each other in those days !!!!
a typical scene from the play: the stolen sheep is being passed off as a baby -
what madness !!!!
As usual there are some interesting words and expressions. I notice that Mak the Thief greets his wife with the ancient English greeting, "What cheer?", meaning "How are you?" or "How're you doing?" or something similar. We don't say this phrase any more, of course, but it once rang down through centuries after centuries.
The word "cheer", originally referring to the face, came to mean "mood". The Puritans took the expression "What cheer?" to America, where it was picked up by the Algonquin Indians of southern New England, and spread from there to many Indian languages including those spoken in today's Canada.
What a crazy world we live in !!!!!
the old greeting, "What cheer?" was spread by the Puritans to the North American Indians
In those days, shepherds were often just called "herds" - a bit like the fact that the word "goat-herd" still refers to the keeper of the goats, not the goats themselves. I didn't know that in those days, shepherds were always buried with a tuft of wool in their hands, to prove, on Judgment Day, that they were shepherds, and so couldn't always get to Sunday morning church.
What madness !!!! [That's enough "mad" items for today - Ed]
20:00 Lois is too wound up, after all the bushfire news, to take part in her sect's weekly Bible Class on zoom, so we settle down on the couch to watch the latest edition of "Grand Designs".
A couple from up north (Derbyshire), Richard and Leigh, saw a ruined, centuries-old flour-mill while travelling in Cornwall, and bought it on impulse, planning to turn it into a residence while preserving as much as possible of the historical features of the building.
Lois and I have to smile, because like a lot of couples in this series, they haven't really investigated the building for its structural soundness, so a lot of nasty surprises await Richard and Leigh as they try to renovate it, and the work ends up costing thousands of pounds more than they expected. They also had to pay over the odds to acquire the old wrecked ruin in the first place - the stinginess of Cornish land-owners and property-owners is legendary, Lois and I always say!!!
It's all doom and gloom till the final reel of the programme, when, as always, Kevin arrives to inspect the work, and sees that, miraculously, the job has all been done.
The outside looks fine - it's just a pity that the couple have made a complete mess of the inside: wood everywhere, all open plan with a shortage of carpets and curtains, a vast kitchen with far more worktop-space than they need, gigantic heavy-looking dining-table, again far bigger than any couple would need, and horrible modern sofas that you can only lie on. And the usual trendy small tables with holes in the table-top so that things can fall through - how crazy!!! Above all a total lack of cosiness - what madness !!!!
The outside looks very nice....
the outside looks very nice, but ......
...but Richard and Leigh have made a total mess of the inside unfortunately - oh dear! Of course, presenter Kevin McCloud drools all over it as usual - no surprise there!!!!
Who would want to live in a house like that? We bet that Richard and Leigh will be out of there within the year, looking for somewhere more inviting! What a pity they had to spend all that money to find that out!!!!
What madness !!!! [that's it - I've warned you once already this evening. Go to bed - Ed]
22:00 The bushfire map hasn't changed since our "watch" began at 3pm. I text Sarah to tell her we're going off duty, and then we go to bed - zzzzzzzzz!!!!
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