A hot and windy day. A day so dry you want to reach for water every hour. Ice cubes melt hastily as if their constitutions are are insult to the elements. Yes, it's definitely the weather that one might call bushfire weather, though I don't want to say it too loudly. Touching wood, I note the latest notification alert popping up on my phone. Nothing close, nothing pressing, yet.

The State of NSW is beset by blazes as any number of maps will demonstrate. The Blue Mountains is a favourite spot for fire, its towns snaking along ridge-lines and spilling into valleys, making it almost uniquely vulnerable. There is no getting away from backyards that sit square into bushland, whole streets set up like nine pins. Its a fact of life, though when push comes to shove, it seems more like a truth buried deep at the back of the mind, only retrieved when days like this come along.

Yes, things could get ugly, fast. A change of wind is due this evening which will cool the air, though maybe at the expense of containing fires. As I write a fire truck roars down the street. Wither?

"No, you cannot come here
this is no time for a tryst,
Ash is falling from the sky
and birds don't sing
I have packed my wedding dress
and my mother's candle sticks

Don't you watch the news?
The State's on fire,
The highway's cut every second day.
We're sitting here
Writing wills and lists
and memoirs that might be our last."

from Bushfire, by Kate Llewellyn


Let's hope it doesn't come to that.