Mr Puss and HIs New Friend

 My cat is a strictly indoor dweller. He's always been very nervous as a result of early trauma before he came to live with us and has never shown any desire to leave the safety of the house. This pleases me since I decided some time ago - after one of my cats died a horrible death with feline AIDS - that any cat I had in the future would be an inside cat. That cat had always been brought in at night and had spent his days snoozing in the backyard but was still attacked by an intruding cat.

Puss has sunny window ledges where he can sun himself and there's plenty of room for him to run around and play with his toys. Now he's fourteen, though, there's considerably less running around and much more sleeping. Whenever he isn't settled by me next to the computer when I'm working his favourite snoozing spot has always been on the foot of my bed and that's where I usually find him.

That all changed to this a few days ago.

He's now found a new favourite place, snuggled next to my pillow with the teddy bear which nestles against my pillows for the delight of visiting grandchildren.

Well Now That Was Unexpected

 I've been writing short stories again. I've been mainly focussed on some novels interspersed by somewhat erratic blogging for a few years. Then a few weeks ago I was doing a spot of non-fiction reading and quite suddenly the idea for a short story arrived. I tossed it around for a few days and then did a little more focussed research reading and without planning anything I started writing. This particular story is now a completed first draft and much to my surprise another short story idea has presented itself. I'm still getting that idea into shape but I think I'll be putting words on the page in a few days. 

Even more surprising is that these stories are sparking even more ideas. It's been years since I've experienced this tumble of ideas one after another. I assumed it was because I was so immersed in the world my novels are set in and the investment I had in the story of those protagonists but it looks like I was wrong. All I needed was the trigger to set my imagination off. Whether these stories will ever make it it into print I don't know - they are part of a somewhat specialised niche - but even if that doesn't happen I'm enjoying the surge of creativity. 

There Are Sounds You Do Not Want To Hear

on a day when the temperature is already over 33° C and you live in a suburban area that has large tracts of bushland. This is the house shaking thwup thwup of a very low flying helitac overhead which means there's a bushfire very close by. This is what happened here this afternoon.

We were just finishing lunch when suddenly two small and noisy planes started making very low circles overhead. They were joined fairly soon by two helicopters. We couldn't see anything or work out what was happening so I went onto our local Facebook community page and discovered that a fire had started about a ten minute walk from here at Star Swamp. This is a bush and wetland nature reserve which adjoins a primary school and houses as well as Marmion Avenue which is a major highway. Calling this a swamp is somewhat unfair as it consists of a combination of a pretty semi permanent four hectare freshwater lake (substantial enough to be used for watering camel trains back in the day) and ninety two hectares of bushland with walking trails.

It turned out the small planes were water bombers and they were soon joined by the sirens of fire crews. We still couldn't see anything - luckily for us, the school and the houses surrounding the reserve the wind was blowing away from us. This was not so lucky for the bushland, though, which was right in the path of the fire. Soon the small planes and helicopters (we assume the last were news crews since they were simply circling) were joined by a larger and even noisier helicopter and finally two very noisy helitacs arrived, swooping low over our house, sirens blaring, on their way to dump their water and return to refill nearby. 

The loud noise and vibrations were enough to send Mr Puss from his snoozing spot on my bed to shelter under it - and I can't say I blame him. It was quite overwhelming. By this time we were being told on the government emergency website to close all doors and windows and to shut down evaporative air conditioners and to be watchful as the fire was not contained. 

Then, as suddenly as it had started, everything went quiet which was something of a relief. When I checked the emergency website again the advice now was that two hectares had been burned out but the fire was now controlled with fire fighters patrolling the area and mopping up. The huge and quick response had obviously been effective and for that both Pisces and I are very grateful.

 

Gardening In A Time Of Climate Change

 This summer has been - well, odd. While we've had our share of hot spells with temperatures 40° C or close to it - and this is typical - what has been different is the humidity. It has been crushing and whether this is because we're not used it I don't know. We mostly have dry heat here which is tiring but liveable with a little help from the air conditioner from time to time. This year's humidity has been made even more difficult because by far the majority of those of us who have air conditioners have evaporative ones and they usually work well. This summer? Not so much. The humidity has meant that using an air conditioner for the most part has been pointless. We're lucky in that our house is very well insulated and shaded from the afternoon sun by a huge marri tree in our front yard which at least cools things somewhat - as long as we keep the house closed up. We haven't even bothered to do more than turn the air conditioner on once to make sure it was working. 

It's not only in the house that the humidity has had an effect. The garden, too, has suffered, particularly the veggie garden. The cucurbits - zucchinis, cucumbers, melons and pumpkins - have all been under attack by powdery mildew to the point that we've had very few fruit from any of them. Zucchinis are, of course, notoriously susceptible to this mildew but we usually have an abundant crop that is still producing up to the beginning of autumn before they succumb. Not so this year. While the plants have struggled on they stopped producing about a month ago. The cucumbers, too, which usually produce so much I supply my neighbours up to the end of March, also died nearly a month ago. It's not only the cucurbit family either. The other plants that have survived aren't flowering which means no harvest. Apart from the semi tropical snake beans, my total bean harvest this summer was five pods, the capsicums have barely flowered and the tomatoes turned up their toes weeks ago. Just to add another annoyance the sweet corn and grapes were wiped out by the corellas.

To say this is disappointing is an understatement. We're used to going out and picking what we need pretty much year round and we really notice the difference of not having access to such fresh supplies. This is not to say that we don't have access to good quality fruit and vegetables here. We certainly do but even if you buy from the markets the produce is of necessity not as fresh as that from your own garden.

So is this climate change in action and the way life is going to be as that accelerates? Maybe but whether it is or not what we can't ignore is that the climate here has already changed. Over the past fifty years our annual rainfall has decreased by around 20% with the dams we always relied on for our water supply close to dry and having been so for some years. Perth now relies on dwindling ground water and desalination. At the same time the average temperature has risen by about 1° C and we're having more intense and frequent hot spells. 

This report put out by the Western Australian Department of Agriculture shows all this and more. Scary, isn't it, and while this is happening there still seems little political will to act. I'm hoping that our recent State election - although the result hasn't yet been declared it's already obvious that the ALP have won with a huge majority - will embolden the state government to make some serious steps to deal with climate change as far as a state can do so. What the federal government does is a quite separate thing, of course, and for that we can only wait and hope they, too, act and sooner rather than later.

Bits and Bobs

 1. About ten years ago Virgo gave me a cymbidium for Mother's Day. It has flowered every year since in May. This year it seems to be a little confused. As you can see from the photo below it's opened its first flower today.

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2. A CT guided nerve root injection is not something I want to have done again. (I would, though, if the one I just had works and I was in that much pain again.) At the moment the jury is out as to whether it was worth the treatment because it can - so I'm told - take up to a week before you notice much difference.

3. Resetting the SMC on my laptop hasn't worked. It - the laptop - has developed the irritating habit of shutting down when the battery is still well charged - and the advice was that resetting said item would solve the problem. Nope.

4. While I was cutting back the leaves of my red hot poker plant - surprisingly for a plant from hot climes  it turns out not to like 40° C plus temperatures - I discovered a glorious rich lemon yellow fungus in the pot. Didn't think to take a photo - duh - but it looked something like this although the colour in these photos isn't anywhere near as vivid.

5. I went out to water the veggies and found that one of the pak choi plants that bolted to flower before I could use it has left me a gift. Eleven healthy looking little plants have come up.

6. Tomorrow we go to vote in our State election and Pisces is getting rather too excited at the prospect of a democracy sausage. For those from other parts of the world this is because most of our polling places are local schools and the P & C (Parents and Citizens Association) will be taking the opportunity to raise money by having stalls selling cakes and other items. One of these is usually a food stall where you can buy a grilled sausage in a bread roll or wrapped in a slice of buttered bread. Some places even offer you onion and sauces! This, my friends, is a democracy sausage. It's such an established custom that folk say they're going to get a democracy sausage instead of that they're going to vote.

 

The Problem Is Not The Victim

 It's International Women's Day today and we're in the middle of outrage about sexual assault here in Australia. So, while I usually avoid controversial subjects here, I'm making an exception for this topic.

I'm not going to talk here about specific allegations currently in the news for obvious reasons but it seems we need to take a serious look at the way we view sexual assault and to put to rest forever the myths that surround it. The thing about sexual assault is that it is rarely committed in a place where there are witnesses which leads a certain and alarmingly large proportion of the public to say 'Well, it comes down to he said, she said' and from that follows the assumption that without independent witnesses we can never really know the truth. It's nonsense of course. If it was the case many murders would never be solved, would they, with the main witness - the victim - being unavailable and yet they are. 

There's also an assumption that women lie about sexual assaults from some desire to get back at men. The victim - male or female - is the one whose credibility is attacked, is shamed and has the most to lose. Why would most people want to put themselves through this? Since it's generally acknowledged the vast majority of sexual assaults are never reported and of those that are - estimated to be somewhere around 10% of actual assaults - only 5% of that 10% are found to be false we're left with an extremely tiny number of false reports. There's an interesting report on sexual violence in Australia here and it's reasonable to infer that it's similar in other countries.

Another pervasive myth is that rapists are strangers to their victim. While there certainly are rapists who prey on strangers they are a very small minority. Overwhelmingly rapists are known to their victims, often close contacts. 

Then there's the suggestion that's frequently levelled at the victim who is blamed for somehow causing their attacker to attack them. This disempowers the victims and is one of a number of reasons why so many sexual assaults are not reported or are withdrawn before it goes to court - and why many of the women who do report rapes don't do so until long after the event. The close to 90% who don't report these assaults to police just live with the consequences often internalising shame and guilt with serious and life long effects.

To give you an idea of just how common these assaults are and what can happen to the victims I'm going to share some examples that I know of personally. Several years ago in the same six months period three women I knew - one a friend and two others in my workplace - told me of being sexually assaulted.

The first was an old friend - an intelligent, educated teacher who had gone out with some family members and friends of the family. The group had ended up at her uncle's home where she and one of the family friends were the last to leave. Her uncle had gone to bed leaving the two alone in the living room and the man had grabbed her, thrown her onto the sofa and raped her. She was so shocked she just picked up her things and left and when she came to see me the next day she was still very distressed. I offered to go with her to the police but she couldn't face the thought of talking to men about it so I put her in contact with the Rape Crisis Centre operating in the city. She fell pregnant as a result of this assault and had an abortion, something she found very difficult to come to terms with, and which affected her relationships for the rest of her life.

The second woman was young - in her early twenties - and she told me how she had been assaulted by her older brother from the time she was five until she was sixteen. She had been too afraid to tell anyone - her attacker had told her terrible things would happen if she did - and she had been misdiagnosed with a mental illness because of her withdrawn and self destructive behaviour. She had been put on antipsychotic drugs which she said had made her even less able to resist. At sixteen she had a new psychiatrist and told him what was happening. Her attacker was sent to prison but she still lived with the trauma and her parents had enormous guilt at not having realised what was going on.

The third woman was in her early thirties when I knew her. She had been to a party where she had fallen asleep after having drunk a lot of alcohol. She woke to find a group of men lining up to take turns raping her. She felt a terrible sense of responsibility for having got drunk and ending up in such a vulnerable position even though she knew logically her attackers had no right to do what they did. She didn't go to the police either.

The fact that three women in my very ordinary and relatively small circle of friends and acquaintances had  been assaulted - and these are only those who felt comfortable in talking to me about it in one six month period - surely shows that this is not something rare. How many others are there in this group who have not told me about their assaults, have not told anyone? 

We need to do better in dealing with sexual assault so that women don't have to choose between living with the consequences or going through the process of reliving the attack multiple times - with the police and in court where insinuations are often made that imply that they are in some way responsible for what has happened to them. That victim blaming still happens even in the wider community was brought into the public eye here again last week when women training to be soldiers were advised by their commanding officer to stay safe from sexual predators by avoiding the four As - alcohol, being out after midnight, being alone and most disturbing, by being attractive. 

One problem according to men, especially young men, is what constitutes consent. The cup of tea video put out by Thames Valley police in the UK is one way to work this out but equally important is for men to understand is consent needs to be enthusiastic. If the woman is asleep, drunk or reluctant this is not enthusiastic consent. Even if she freezes and can't or doesn't say no this is still not enthusiastic consent. It's really quite simple and comes down to respect.

It's clear that many in the community are still struggling with the fact that the only person responsible for a rape is the one doing the assaulting so I hope that the current outrage continues and forces a change in public thinking. It's long overdue.

And The Rain Came Down

 It certainly did. Just a couple of days after we had had a heatwave with maximum temperatures of around 39° C we had steady, soaking rain accompanied by thunder and lightning for all of yesterday. There was so much rain in fact that we received the total March average rainfall in one day. Given our dry climate this is a very good thing as long as there isn't major damage and there wasn't this time. We're not always that lucky, though. We've had some severe storms in March - one about ten years ago came with huge hail which battered cars, wrecking body work and smashing windscreens, and damaged thousands of homes leaving many without power for up to a week. 

The forecast for today is a possible shower or storm but for now the skies are clear so I've taken the opportunity to put the sheets in to wash in hopes they'll dry before the rain returns. If it comes to the worst I'll finish drying them in the dryer but like most folk here, unless they live in an apartment without access to a clothesline, I dry my washing on an outside line. I wonder if this will change soon since blocks are getting smaller and smaller and without an outdoor space this will be impossible. While I understand the reason this is happening - a city can't expand outwards forever - it does seem somewhat irresponsible in a time when we should be cutting energy using. Back in the day all apartment buildings here with a communal laundry used to have to provide an external clothesline. Doesn't seem to be the case now, sadly.

For the rest of the week it looks as if there'll be more rain and cooler temperatures so there's that to look forward to. I've just been out to check and I think the sprinklers can stay off tomorrow - our rostered watering day - and if the forecast is right it may even stay damp enough to skip watering on our next rostered day (which is Saturday). Any water saving is desirable here where our climate has changed significantly and we now get far less rain than we used to even twenty years ago. 

It's oddly cool given we're currently in Bunuru, which, according to the local Noongar people's seasons, is usually the hottest time of the year. Bunuru roughly covers February and March which are generally very hot but the seasons seem to be slipping somewhat with everything now starting two to three weeks later than it used to be so we may yet be in for hotter days before we move into Djeran around the start of April..