Ouch!

So I’ve had lots of time lately for quiet contemplation, as I watch my thumb turn various shades of green and purple and practise wriggling my fat little sausage fingers.

What started out as an early-morning dog walk on a frosty day ended up as a three-day stint in Bega Hospital having surgery on a broken wrist, which involved a plate and some screws to put it back together. Serves me right for wishing that I didn’t have to go to work that day. My son and his girlfriend were visiting and I would rather have spent the day with them. As it turns out, I did, but not how I’d expected to. Be careful what you wish for, hey? Luckily they were there to drive me up the coast to the hospital, and then look after Tilly and Mr Tibbs for a few days.

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After the fires

People fall in love with Mallacoota. Families come for a summer holiday, and a second one, and then keep returning for fifty years or more. People drop in to look at the view, buy a house on a whim, and stay for good. It’s that sort of place.

Mallacoota is my lifelong love affair. I’ve holidayed here forever, and now it’s my home. I’ll be here for good, because this is where I feel truly alive.

Watching Mallacoota burn was an experience I can’t quite believe ever happened, even though the brutal evidence is everywhere. It’s as though I’d been plucked out of normal life that day and dropped into another place; a strange and threatening landscape. It was how I imagined the end of a dying world might look – pitch black except for a vivid orange glow.

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