Heatwave

Spring is almost over and we're heading into Summer so things are warming up nicely. This Spring has been very dry compared with most years and perhaps a bit warmer than normal. But the pattern is currently very strange. Rather than seeing the progression of fronts from the Southern Ocean, which bring cooler temperatures and wet weather, the pressure cells are stuck in one place and bringing progressively hotter conditions. Today's temperature is expected to be around 29C and it certainly felt like that as I was cycling home! And the next couple of days will see things in the low 30s. At the same time the system is feeding humid air in off the Coral Sea so it's a bit like living in a sauna. Big storm clouds are building up during each morning and by late afternoon the flash of lightning starts up. We've had the odd shower, but not much rain. It's the nature of these storms that they are spotty and one has to be under one to get a lot of rain. Three days ago we had 6mm of rain (about 1/4 inch), but the folks a few km away had 200mm (8 inches) and hail the size of golf balls causing a lot of damage.

Poor Dot is trying to plant new shrubs in the garden, but the soil currently resembles concrete because of the lack of rain. The garden, however, still looks green because of earlier cooler temperatures, and some watering when I'd fertilised the lawn. As I type this, lots of dark clouds are hovering around and the bureau of meteorology shows storm showers to the southeast of us. With a bit of luck, they'll come this way minus the hail. While it's 30C+ here, 200 km to the west the temperatures are reaching into the 40s, so I shouldn't complain too much.

AS

Fifth Re-Birthday

Long-term readers will know that had a serious cardiac arrest in on 19 November 2007 and that the fifth anniversary is imminent. At the time I was probably 5 or 10 minutes from being a few meters underground, but now it seems that I have made a full recovery and need a normal life if one excludes the 5 pills I'm taking daily.

I don't need any presents to celebrate this 'birthday' but a snappy email wouldn't go amiss.

In another sense this is also an anniversary posting. It takes my tally to 550 entries and the BLOG's existence is also virtually co-terminous with the last 5 years.

AS

Now you see it; now you don't

This morning hosted one of the most exciting events of the year ... or it was supposed to. I rose early and gazed to the east to view the rising sun. Alas it was cloud covered, though the high level stratus began to burn off after a while. Meanwhile, I went on-line to see how the expected event was progressing in Cairns 2000 km to the north. It was then that I realised I had mistimed my tracking of the solar eclipse and had risen an hour too early, a mistake due in part to the fact that NSW is on summer time but Queensland doesn't the clocks forward. So a solar eclipse timed for 6.40 am Qld time really occurs at 7.40 am in NSW.

In Cairns, the eclipse was total, like the one I saw a decade ago standing on Dartmoor in SW England. Further south, in Armidale NSW, it only reached 60% or so and barely darkened the landscape. Certainly the birds inhabiting our garden failed to fly home to roost and we had the usual constellation of rainbow lorikeets, king parrots, galahs, crimson rosellas, and others. I managed to make out the moon taking lumps out of the sun whenever the cloud dispersed momentarily, but the show was muted. I even tried to take photos of the vent, though again with little success as I don't have the right filters. The picture below is the best of the lot, but unimpressive. It was taken from our garden close to the maximum 60% occlusion at 8 am (AEST + 1 = summer time), but the sun still seems to be shining with its usual brightness. Perhaps the misty high level cloud is hiding the 60% of the sun that's missing!

Oh well. Better luck next time. Meanwhile the eclipse's track means that the Cairns region is just about the only spot on the planet to see 100% version. The remainder of the track is across the South Pacific and barely touches any land before reaching Chile close to dusk on that side of the ocean.

AS

Anatidaephobia

I came across a wonderful word today in a Facebook post. I know that there are many phobias, but this one is hilarious and thank my friend Martin Auster for bringing it to my attention. Have you ever come across Anatidaephobia?

So what is it? Anatidaephobia is defined as a pervasive, irrational fear that one is being watched by a duck. The anatidaephobic individual fears that no matter where they are or what they are doing, a duck watches. Anatidaephobia is derived from the Greek word "anatidae", meaning ducks, geese or swans and "phobos" meaning fear.

Now it doesn't seem such a funny term and I'm wondering if I am a sufferer from this condition. I cycle past several waddlings of ducks on most days and they always turn to look at me as I go past. Waddling is, by the way, one of the collective nouns for a group of ducks.

Can anyone please advise me if I should be wary of them ... or is it simply the other way around and they are experiencing a form of homosapiensphobia!? And is there any cure for this phobia if it's real?

AS

Foreign Musings on the US Election

I love this poster. After watching Obama's deserved win and musing over the huge flaws emerging in American society I'm more convinced than ever that the US needs another 'little rebellion' to create a more inclusive, efficient, future-oriented society free of the hands in the till cliques who are ruining the country.

I include here the vast medical-pharmaceutical conspiracy that costs the US economy twice as much of GDP as the average for the OECD for worse than average health outcomes; the agricultural subsidy rort that shovels bucket-loads of cash into corporate farms; a legal system slanted towards enriching lawyers at everyone else's expense; a large military - industrial conspiracy; and excessively restrictive IP laws also designed to funnel bucket loads of cash to certain financial interests.

Fix those and you've (i) fixed the US budget deficit, (ii) started on the road to greater social equity on the Australian, European and East Asian models, (iii) liberated a pool of cash that could help fund the education drive necessary to propel the US dynamically towards the 2050 knowledge economy; and (iv) enriched the nation as the marginal utility of the vast wealth hoarded by the top few is virtually zero.

But guess what. Those groups with their hands in the public till tend to vote Republican, a party not of private enterprise but of financial rorts. Washington's Heritage Foundation run and Index of Global Economic Freedom. On that index only 5 nations are rated as free: Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and Switzerland in that order. The US comes in tenth; Britain fourteenth; both admittedly a long way ahead of north Korea. Worse, the GFC has meant that 'freedom' only rose in 10 of the 28 highest ranked nations over the last year - including the three at the top of the list - but went in reverse in the US and UK.

So Jefferson, whom I admire, was right again.

AS

Smoked-out

Armidale is currently enveloped in a thick brown smoke haze like nothing I've seen before. The unpleasant conditions have been caused by a huge bush-fire in the Macleay Gorge east of Armidale and it has been fanned by strong easterly winds. The fire, which is located in remote and difficult terrain, is apparently now under control, but it has burnt out no less than 32,000 ha (79,000 acres). For my UK readers, this amounts to a huge area. Fortunately, Armidale is in no risk of burning to the ground!

AS

Cabarfeidh and Ollera

Periodically we are able to visit and admire the gardens of country properties and today it was the turn of the  Guyra district 26 km or more north of Armidale. I drove Dot and two of her friends to Guyra to select the properties we wanted to see and they were in order of visit (a) Cabarfeidh and (b) Ollera, both of which were owned by members of the Skipper family. One thing is driving me mad. I identified the first name as Scottish Gaelic, which turns out to be correct. There's a Cabarfeidh hotel at Stornaway and the name may mean 'chief' as the head of the Clan Mackenzie has the title of Cabarfeidh. But no Gaelic dictionary is able to translate the word for me.

I'll show some pictures of the two gardens starting with Cabarfeidh. This property had been neglected for many years until recently and is in the process of re-development around a new homestead constructed in the 2000s. The entrance drive has an imposing century old oak tree, a remnant of the old garden.

The house itself overlooks a pleasant valley on the western side of the Great Divide, so that waters flowing down the stream at an altitude of about 1300 m flow eventually to the Southern Ocean near Adelaide (1330 km in a straight line). That's an average fall of just 1 m per km, though it's much steeper at the upper end.

The current owners, who constructed a new home using bits and pieces of the old have had a busy time planning and planting new shrubs and flowering plants ... along with some plants sculptured in metal like these here.

It was a pleasant place to visit and to have lunch. Moreover, we could have started a game of bridge if I'd remembered to bring the table and cards. We bumped into enough Armidale bridge players to have at least two tables in play!

Ollera Station (large farms are called stations in Australia) was settled very early by New England standards in 1838 and much of the homestead and surrounding buildings are listed by the National Trust and/or the National Estate register. The process of founding Ollera is reported at: http://www.nswera.net.au/biogs/UNE0363b.htm . In the 1870s it seems that the property was supervised by a James Mackenzie and that association with Scotland's clan Mackenzie might have led to Cabarfeidh obtaining its name. The property carried 12000 sheep, 6000 cattle and 400 horses by 1860 and it's size grew to 73,000 acres by 1877. Not bad for a couple of blokes who arrived with very little in the 1830s!

Here's the homestead and its immediate gardens, which are embedded in the rolling pasture-lands of the high tablelands of northern NSW.

The plants contained in the gardens are a mixture of exotics and natives.

By the 1870s there were so many people working Ollera that it had its own school and eventually its own church, shown here. And as the locals passed on, their descendants decorated the buildings with commemorative windows like the one shown here.

As we left Ollera it began to rain bringing to an end the hot dry weather of the last few days.

AS

Heat Wave!

A few days ago I remember posting the information that it was snowing, well really sleeting in Armidale and that maximum temperatures for the day had sunk to about 7 degrees. Today they reached 29C, a little bit short of the predicted 30, but warm enough. I left my cycle ride until late afternoon - about 4.45pm - but it was still very warm and the ride was slow heading into a very strong breeze! The time of year here is the equivalent of, say, mid April in the UK when was the last time it reached 30C in April in Britain?

AS

Cirque du Soleil

Once in a while one has a defining moment and last Saturday was one of them. Bec managed to get 5 tickets for the Cirque du Soleil at Sydney's Moore Park and she, Rob, Max, Dot and I turned up for the performance  I hadn't done my homework and really didn't know what expect , apart from lions and tigers! Well, the show we saw was something out of this world and contained no livestock - just tumblers and clowns most of whom appeared dressed up as insects. But their personal talents were extraordinary.

I cannot provide any pictures of the event because photography was banned, but I'll direct you to their website where you can some short videos: http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/en/home.aspx#/en/home/multimedias/videos/all.aspx . If you get a chance to go, don't pass the opportunity up, though the tickets are not cheap. They were over 500 GBP (about A$800) for the five of us.

Come to think of it, I do have two photos, one of Max and the other of the tent! So here goes:

At least this proves we were there!

AS

An Early Summer

Summer has arrived early in Armidale over the last week, with some of the most delightful weather I can remember here at any time, yet alone in early October. Imagine the first week of April in Britain and the weather you'd experience. I bet it would not have temperatures in the mid-20s, warm nights, gloriously sunny days, and a pristine atmosphere. Maybe in mid-summer in the UK? Yet the leaves on many trees are only now beginning to sprout and flowers on our azaleas are yet to emerge. I guess that we cannot keep this up! However, it does suggest that October is good time to visit us.

AS