I keeping looking at the pictures but still can’t quite believe it. The extent of the damage, the flames, the death toll, the pure devastation.  I guess that most Australians who are living this nightmare of bush fires can’t quite believe it either. Put this together with the freaky snow weather in the UK and you kinda wonder what’s the world coming to.

Living in a small isolated island in the middle of nowhere gives you a sense of comfort yet a strange vulnerability too.  There is nothing more that makes this feeling more acute that looking at the sky – at night, at sun down.  You start to see the world in a whole different perspective.

It is at this time of night I realise that whilst I’m putting the chickens to bed, closing up the barn and heading towards the house to settle down for the night that my family and friends are just starting their day.  Turning over to hit the snooze button, stumbling around to make the tea or leaping in the shower after a early morning run!

Nothing changes how sort of unbelievable this feels.  But I know it’s true.  I can ring people and they can confirm that as I’m watching the sun go down it’s rising up for them.  That the moon I’m looking at is the same moon that they looked at only hours before.

Today I’ve intermittently been checking the news to see whether the Australian fires are under control.  Whether the snow has stopped falling whether there is any semblance of goodness anywhere in the world.  It’s hard to tell sometimes where the good news is.  And, I’m sure there is some.

It didn’t seem right to be rattling on about the good life here at Domestic Executive HQ when there is such tragedy unfolding across the Tasman.  You see today was a normal Monday.  Nothing really out of the ordinary happened here.  I’m grateful for that.

You see my heart and mind has been in a different place today.  Somewhere where it’s real, I know it’s real, people tell me it’s real.  But I can’t quite believe it’s happening.  Or maybe it’s just I don’t want to believe it.  And what good will that do.

I’ll just have to settle for watching the moon come up over the Rimutakas and hope that tomorrow things improve in some small way for people who are really facing trauma and tragedy.  After all, there is one this you can count on – believe in – the sun is going to rise and set and the moon is going to shine.  Every day, whatever happens in the world.  You can believe that!