Bushfire

The sight of a horizon ringed with smoke can be rather alarming and the insoucience of one's Australian hosts who sit on their verandah and calmly discuss the likelihood of the wind veering to bring the flames racing towards you is, to say the least, annoying.

Such was my experience when visiting Cambelltown, a suburb in the west of Sydney. The raging monster that was the bushfire, driven by a fairly brisk wind so that it rampaged through the tinder-dry oil-filled eucalyptus trees, gave me an irresistable urge to climb in the car and be elsewhere.

My Australian hosts, however, behaved in the manner described above. You will be happy to learn that, for the sake of the British "stiff upper lip" I refrained from beating them over the head with the nearest bottle and was quite off-hand about the whole affair. (It is a little disappointing to have to reveal that their confidence was entirely justified and the house and farm are still standing, though others, only a few miles away, were not so lucky.)