It's been busy in these parts recently, and well, you know what it's like sometimes? You just need a good night out. Support a mate, lovely food, a glass of something nice. Why is it then, when you're all geared up for a bit of 'me time', the universe decides to make it all complicated?

I mean it started out okay. I fed the children, waited patiently for H to make it home. Did the mad scramble to put on some good clobber and donned the high heels. Even dragged the hair into some semblance of "going out order". Sprinted back to the kitchen to get the okay on how it all looked ... and you guessed it ... fire pager. The shoulders must have slumped. H, who'd just come in the back door, looked at me and said, 'Go, just go...'

GUILT. Oh the Guilt.

Not helped by the sight of the fire captain roaring towards me on the road heading for the fire station, and the look on his face. You could just see what he was thinking, "stupid woman's going the wrong bloody way...".

I stopped to catch my breath and give myself a bit of a talking to... and this popped up in front of me.

Bushfire Sunset behind a Linear Move Irrigator.

All ironic hey!

I haven't got over the guilty feelings yet, but this picture sort of helped.

The cars lined up at a mate's place.

The companionship and the laughs, and the food and the drinks, and the chance to remind ourselves that for all the floods, and the fires, and the rest of it, we're okay when we're amongst friends.