Birthday party time and bush fire smoke

They catch up with us all, the years and birthdays that is. I'm normally reclusive on that one day a year when we [hopefully] reflect on where we're going, but my lovely cousin Trish insisted on putting on a barbeque, which in turn prompted me to share the event. So it was really nice to catch up with so many great people from my past and present.

Here I am posing with my son Dougal...


When cutting the cake I decided to make my wish more public: "health and happiness to all"!

We awoke this am to an orange tinge in the light outside. I've seen this before and find it amazing as it's so far away over such a huge ocean - it's caused by smoke from the current bush fires in Australia. Later in the morning it thickened and I don't recall it ever being so pervasive in our atmosphere in other hot seasons. It must be pretty tough over there across the Tasman Sea: "Melbourne had its hottest day on record yesterday when the temperature reached 46.4 degrees. The highest temperature in Victoria yesterday was 47.9 degrees, the second highest for the state ever recorded". thanks David Crow forecaster

The sun over Wanaka at 1pm today, and that is not all cloud on the left...


As I post this blog the light outside is decidedly a weird yellow. Although rain is not forecast it looks imminent and I'm wondering if because of the unexpected large amounts of smoke now at high altitude that this may cause the air to condense more than expected, and we'll get some welcome moisture. I can almost smell the smoke too. I wonder if ash will soon be evident! I know we will see it in the snow pack in the glaciers over the next few years, just like after other big bush fire years.