Give us strength

It feels a bit wrong to blather today as fires still rage throughout the country and people have lost their homes and risked their lives.

Residents in parts of NSW were told it was too late to leave their homes after an escalation in fire conditions, with blazes moving swiftly towards populated areas.

Facebook provided quite harrowing updates on these battles from your friends who are facing the emergency head on.

At lunchtime yesterday, one posted: “It’s coming OMG. Give us strength please.”

That didn’t sound at all good.

The “if we make it out of this” updates continued throughout the day and night. It was awful to read them, I can’t imagine what it was like to be in the middle of it.

And it horrifies me that anyone would deliberately light a fire that could take away people’s lives and homes.

It really brought it home – a little too close to home – when the Sydney suburb two colleagues live in was under threat of burning to the ground. Some residents were told it was too late for them to evacuate.

Fark!

I also read yesterday that people with respiratory conditions were cautioned to stay inside, I felt a little guilty that I’d agreed with my ex’s decision to send the reluctant youngest to school.

About three million people in Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Ipswich were told to stay indoors as bushfire smoke created an “unprecedented” health hazard. In Sydney, air quality index figures showed conditions in some parts of the city rival Beijing.

It was disturbing to cross the Sydney Harbour Bridge last night in a cab – the city was blanketed in smoke and visibility was very poor.

The immuno-weak youngest is still recovering from tonsilitiis, but got up at the crack of dawn yesterday to go for a netball trial at a selective sports high school.

She reckons she played two of the three games pretty well, but flunked the third one. Though apparently the other girls said she should be fine to score a spot at the sports academy for netball as she was so tall.

Will advise.

To everyone suffering through this unprecedented environmental disaster, take care, I have everything crossed for you.