Normal service is more or less resumed

Tuesday's Age put it best:

the nearest fires were 35km and two valleys away ...

Not  quite true, there were some minor fires closer to home, but the worst of this horror summer seems to be over, it's started (grudgingly) to rain again, there's little or no smoke in the air, meaning that the air purifier we bought is no longer required.

We're still getting orange dust when the wind blows from the west, but that's more an irritation than an inconvenience.

Perhaps the most worrying long term thing to come out of this is the lack of insects. There are almost no bees or other flying beasties, not even the usual horde of annoying flies, and while the chilli plants and eggplants are still trying to make a go of things, there's nothing to pollinate them.

The zucchinis are producing well and we have a lot of small tomatoes - not enough rain to make the fruit swell, but othed dependables, like the runner beans and the sweetcorn have been a disaster.

At least we just grow these for dun, but one wonders about the impact on commercial agriculture ...