Extremes

Before I start, sorry about the promise of a post about HIDEOUS SHOES that you might have been waiting for. I knew that I'd mess up your Google Readers. My sister, whose Internet connection is dodgy at the best of times, wanted to see a pic I'd found of Lara Bingle's hideous shoes from the Allan Border Medal Ceremony. The easiest way I could quickly show her the pic was to flash it up quickly on my blog. Easier than emailing it anyway. I then took the post down because I didn't really want to be bagging Lara's shoes on my blog, but on second thoughts, they are JUST SO BAD that perhaps the world should be warned of their hideousness. They are described as Louis Vuitton Uber-Heels. My sister said that a similar thing happens to gumboots when you've been walking through thick mud:

These are truly horrible. If you don't agree with me, you're wrong.

Now, on to today's post.

My wonderful friend Heather from upstate New York did a post for me today. It's all about the weather. Because that's who we are when we start chatting online: a couple of old biddies who talk about the weather. But it's very interesting!

We Aussies find this very hard to believe, but right now, Heather and half the northern hemisphere are FREEZING. I guess that on a basic level, I completely understand why. Tilt the earth's axis, make it spin around a sun, yeah yeah, I get it.

I've listened in horror to Mrs Tantrum's stories of SNOWPOCALYPSE followed by RAINPOCALYPSE, two aspects of the WEATHERPOCALYPSE she is going through right now.

I've also ached for Jen who has to keep four young children mostly inside for months on end as the snow deepens and things freeze over.

And I was interested to see Tracy P's family making snow clouds and blowing bubbles that froze and then shattered in the sub-freezing temperatures.

But isn't it completely weird that I can be chatting to someone in real time who is experiencing weather like this, when we are experiencing the complete opposite?

Let me tell you what's going on here.

My poor fellow Aussies are either baking, roasting or swimming in flood waters. The weather here is perfect. I've got "Bad Weather Survivor Guilt."

Here are some pictures from the floods up north (#2 is a pic of wallabies crowding onto a small island, #4 is cattle trying to find dry land):
Here are some animals, trying to escape the heat:

But there are no pictures of those who I am most worried about: the elderly. There are sharp increases in deaths on hot days, and I really worry about them.

Another thing we all worry about when the temperatures soar is this:

For those of you who measure in Fahrenheit, I'll give you some idea of the temperatures 'down south' from here (a term usually synonymous with colder weather, not hotter weather):

The hot bits of Aus have been about 104F to 113F.
We're worried about tomorrow, when the west of New South Wales is expecting 117F.

Spare prayers can be directed to the people (and animals) in both the North East and South East of our crazy land!