My entry for Saturday morning seems so vacuous and trite for the events that then transpired in the Melbourne environs that day. We submerged ourselves in retailing and watching the outside temperature rise and rise. At three o clock as the temperature peaked at 46 degrees the store was busy with standing room only although the streetscape was like "On the Beach" ... one suspects that people were happy to hide in our dark airconditioned spaces and listen to music and watch movies rather than stay at home watching the news as it unfolded.
The internet and radio gradually began to give us a picture that resembled an invading army marauding and pillaging its way around my favourite motorcycle rides north of the city. Then the casualty figures began to come in ... four then six then fourteen ... as I write this it stands at 108 and has become Australia's worst fire disaster ... yet it seems so far away from this perfect insulated city of Melbourne. Even the smoke hasn't blown over the city as yet, it seems so unjust that our lives go as normal when a thousand houses and whole communities have been destroyed just thirty miles away.