Returning to Sydney to live after being in Europe for almost four years certainly has made me aware of my immediate environment. When I first arrived three weeks ago there were water restrictions due to the worsening drought. Then just a couple of days ago when I was driving home with my boyfriend a sheet of torrential rain suddenly descended on us. We could not see anything and had to pull off the highway as lightning streaked across the sky and the road rumbled beneath us. On the way home the water on the roads had swelled over the gutters and inevitably the car conked out.
Now only a week later bush fires are ravaging Sydney. The bush reserve in the suburb (Gladesville) next to where I am living caught on fire today and strong winds are now pushing flames close to the houses that back onto it. This afternoon as the sun took on the shape of a fuzzy, glowing orange ball and grey smoke billowed across the sky an eerie orange light descended on everything. I walked to the reserve to join other onlookers as the bright orange flames licked across the valley. All around residents stood on their roof tops hosing down their gutters and surrounding trees - anything to stop a nasty flying fire spark from catching alight. I stood and waited wondering if there was anything I could do. Everyone seemed amazingly calm considering a major bush fire was at the edge of their backyards. Later I watched the carnage on TV as areas around Sydney caught alight. Apparently the fires are even worse than last year. Images began to flash across my screen of houses being burnt to the ground - totally tragic stories.
I think after living away from Australia for a while made me forget the environmental hazards that seem to surround people living here daily or possibly they are getting worse. These last few weeks have certainly been a first hand experience for me of extreme weather...from drought, to torrential rain, then bushfires and inevitably back to drought.

I took this rather hazy image below of the fire burning behind houses just down the road from where I live.