What a whirlwind few weeks I have had!
Steve turned 30 on the 30th of January, we went to his mums house for 3 days and camped out in their paddock...sort of. We thought it would be a great idea, it is such a Steve thing to do. He invited a whole heap of Facebook friends to come down and camp the night at his mum's house, unfortunately we hadn't factored in an approaching cyclone! The wind was so strong Nayds tent, on the first night, ended up being a blanket and she was worried about suffocating in it so she bunked in with us and the second night none of us wanted to chance the winds again so all moved our beds onto the patio only to be woken at about 6am by a huge downpour! Yup, it was some fun times that's for sure! LOL
On the Saturday (Steve's party was Friday night) we packed our stuff up and headed home (When I say we I actually mean Steve because I was laid out on the couch with a wicked headache and no drugs to relieve it) and then had the joy of a tee-ball carnival the next day.
Steve got two weeks off for his birthday and course he had to do so went back to work for two week. On the Sunday after he left Hamish had another carnival in Mandurah (About an hour away from home) so I left the girls with mum and dad and Hamish and I drove down at 6:30am for the carnival. It was a very long day and as we left I discovered it was about to get even longer!
As we started to drive away from the oval my mobile rang so I pulled over to answer it, it was my sister Nayd calling to say "Don't go home, you have been evacuated! There is a massive bushfire headed your way so come to mine instead" Okay, not a problem. She had grabbed my camera bag, passports and the two dogs plus the girls teddies (The girls were both with her as mum and dad went out for lunch) So I was quietly panicking about my box of photos I had only the week before brought home from our storage unit plus all of Steve's musical equipment.
As we drove home, we saw the smoke get worse and worse and blacker and blacker. It got so bad at one stage I couldn't see the car in front of me and even with headlights on it was like driving through red night, scary stuff! So, we get to Nayd's and she is almost in tears, Jess is almost in tears, Kenz is almost in tears, Andree (Nayd's client) is almost in tears and the 3 dogs are barking up a storm.
Hamish by the stage is in tears for two reasons:
A) He hasn't had lunch yet as we were going to get something on the way home but Naydene was a little stressed so we needed to get to her as quickly as possible. Nayd had hot dogs but in all the mad rush we forgot to get them for Haim!
B) We couldn't get back to our house to rescue his rabbit so I had to prepare him in the fact that even if the house didn't burn down there was good chance his rabbit would die from the smoke.
So, We have 2 functioning adults, 2 intellectually disabled adults, 3 children, 3 dogs and 3 cars and we then receive news that Nayds house is to be evacuated too! All the aforementioned "near tears" people promptly burst into tears which left me to try and keep everyone working towards packing things up and getting out. I tell Nayd and Steven (Who is her live-in client, he has Down Syndrome and is a lovely man but often in his own world so needs a lot of supervision) to get 2 changes of clothes each plus something to sleep in. Nayd managed to get 2 dresses and nothing to sleep in but a few pairs of knickers and Steven had a number of tee-shirts but not enough pants! LOL But in positive news, Nayd did pack her GHD just in case! LOL
We all bundled into my van and mum's car, leaving nayd's car at her house, and drove to drop Andree off at her house then went to my cousins house. Finally at about 8:30pm (Still not knowing if the houses were okay or not) we walked in to my mum and dad's friends house to stay until we could go back home.
The next morning, we got word from dad (Who is a fireman and was allowed to go in the evacuated zone) that both houses were safe for now so all we could do was sit and wait. Thankfully, the house we were staying at was more like a resort, it was absolutely beautiful! Ingrid had got her kids to bring over mattresses for the kids and I so we could all be in the same room together. They had a toy room which kept the kids entertained as well as pool which was perfect for the hot weather and enough room for all of us to have our own space so all in all it was certainly the kind of evacuation I could get used to ;)
After 2 nights away from home, we were allowed to go back, thankfully our home, garden and rabbit were all fine! The house across the road from my old house burnt down, the bush across the way from us was all burnt plus a number of houses in the area ( I think final figures were about 90 destroyed 50 damaged houses) plus a bridge on one of the major roads which has caused quite a big traffic problem in the area so it is all taking time to get used to but we are all so grateful and humbled by the experience, words can not express how thankful we feel to have been spared.
TO BE CONTINUED...
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