We sat about in the stinking heat, trying to keep livestock alive, monitoring constantly for fire outbreaks. Not exactly anyone's idea of a "relaxing weekend".
Did we go away? Of course not, we can't leave at this time of the year although, we did throw caution to the wind for one afternoon at a local winery - on the understanding that if anything happened my partner wouldn't be driving the CFA truck to it. He had a glass of wine. The zero alcohol requirement for drivers these days means that you either live your life based on the demands of the CFA, or you opt for can't help in the event of disaster and have a life, or at least 4 hours of a normal life.
It's been a torrid February / March period after a weird winter where we got flooded on one day, and spent the rest of the season trying to get water tanks filled.
Around 4mls of rain in total for those two months though, with stinking heat and strong winds. Combine that with a couple of long weekends which mean campfires out of control, cars being driven into long grass setting off fires, fire bugs, permit burns getting out of control, people reporting permit burns despite them being permit burns, long weekend non-permit burns because people are ... , car / bike accidents, and generally anything and everything designed to keep VOLUNTEERS running, and you kind of get to the stage where you dread long weekends. They just mean stress, worry and sheer hard work.
So you can imagine that there's a bit of sensitivity about messaging around. That the ABC are firmly city centric goes without saying, but their weather reporting this Easter long weekend really took the cake, which I thought they'd eaten ages ago, but here they were, really ramping up the put downs. I mean it's one thing for the ABC Wimmera to mostly ignore local fires, or report inaccurate fire information with a bit of a laugh and some lighthearted bants whilst people's houses were going up in flames, and firefighters were in danger, but you know, "ideal weather" over Easter wasn't it. Oh until it "deteriorated" and there was some rain over firegrounds that have been burning for weeks.
It was so bloody hot, and dry for most of Easter, after it being so bloody hot and dry for so long that frankly, we're exhausted. And running out of water again, as well as patience and tolerance for thoughtless fools. Their reporting was more than just the normal "well you don't matter" put down. They were reporting this in the face of fire's still burning, exhausted and frazzled volunteers, ongoing high levels of fire calls self evident on the apps, the lack of rain and stinking hot weather being noted in the same bloody report that insisted that the heat was "ideal" and the potential rain "deteriorating". And yes, there were some storms in all of it, but "deterioration". Oh I'm sorry, did our need for water and maybe some relief from constantly worrying about fires on the doorstop screw up your weekend of sitting around in the bush toasting marshmallows on campfires you can't seem to put out for love nor money? Pardon us, we'll just wait for you to wander back to your reticulated water systems and paid firefighters and the like, and belt in and fix the mess you've left in your wake shall we...
So the upside is I've finally weened myself off any pretence of following ABC News. They aren't even slightly interested in rural listeners / viewers anyway. I mean their complaint form doesn't even have an option for anything other than regional town or "remote". But then this is from the fools that reported Dunarch as "remote" a while ago.
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