Sometime during the night the silence woke me: no rain on the tin roof, after three continuous days of bombardment, eight inches in all.
I stumbled out on to the verandah at about 6.45 a.m., feet fumbling for the thongs, eyes peering at the thermometer – 4 degrees – then the ritual glance into the distance. Blink. Wow!
The first snowfalls on my opposite ridge, which is about 5,300 feet high. No matter how light the dusting of white, the sight is always a bonus gift, since it is no colder here than in many snowless places.
I feed the horses and check their rugs: they are warm and dry under there. Ready for more rain, or snow.
I am marooned on my mountain, but safe, as we have not had the big winds that went with the rain nearer the coast. Newcastle certainly had an ‘extreme weather event’, more of which have been forecast as global warming increases.
Which it certainly will if Mr Sartor keeps fuelling it with more coalmines – like Anvil Hill.
Are you watching the news, Mr Sartor? Are you feeling even a twinge of conscience? But I forgot: you keep your coal blinkers on for climate chaos events, so no connection is possible in your politician’s brain. I guess I was hoping you still had a part of your mind that can see the bleeding obvious, get brave and stand up to the coal bosses.
It’s OK to admit a wrong decision: like with the sale of the Snowy.
Elsewhere in the more civilised Hunter there are trees and power poles down, floods, electricity black-outs and hence water supply failures. I feel for the people so drastically affected there.
The government’s scare campaign has said we’ll all be back in caves by candlelight if we stop burning coal for energy.
Well, Mr Sartor, I have secure electricity and water. Stored solar power is allowing me to write this on my computer by my reading light, while listening to the radio for storm bulletins; my water tanks are overflowing, my slow combustion stove has my water hot, my cabin cosy — it’s a hard life without coal-fired mains systems.