Nearly a new year lets hope it's a wet one.

What can I say who else get a Christmas present like this, this is the biggest rat I have seen in this area I have seen a bigger one running along the railway tracks in the underground in Sydney but wildlife is in short supply since the drought this time last year we had a mass of  kookaburras,  corellias and masses of doves, even the bat numbers are down from years gone by. Tom Tom is a very good rat catcher but I wish he would  bury them in the back yard instead of leaving them in the lounge room floor.

To hot outside today so I took some inside pictures

The Christmas tree

and stockings I found some lollies in the toe of one of them.

Today was a bit cooler so Tom and I sat outside after raking up leaves, but they keep falling

Tom is no help at all good at supervising

The garden is doing ok being kept alive with water from the washing machine.

even the african violets are still alive they are the neighbours, they are overseas and I'm babysitting.

and red reflections are everywhere  being a common sight now and smoke still fills the air.

Just little bits.

 It's been a couple of weeks and our part of the world is still in danger the fires are now huge and we haven't had any rain and very hot conditions so there is no good news, I hope we get rain soon but it is not all bad our neighbour who is away overseas, his water plant is flowering so i took a picture to show him when he gets home.   

 This is the very tiny praying mantis I have ever seen, he sat on my hand for a while then climbed on a black pot  so he was easier to take a photo of. 

 Tom  Tom is asleep on the pillows you have to look hard he is hard to see.

 This is my grand daughter some days are so hot and smoky it's hard to go outside for long so I sit and draw the day away.

More smoke and lots of fires.

Sad to say not much has changed we are still very much in drought and bush fires ravage the outer areas of Sydney. long dry days filling our skies with smoke and dust. It means not much to do , and not much energy to do it so sitting around and chatting it the best way to spend the day, we have a spot in the driveway which catches all the cool breezes and we can watch the people passing by not that many are out and about lately but we had a few days of clear skies, Tom Tom spends most mornings asleep in the spare bed but when the weather is nice he will climb all the trees

 and chase lizards and anything else he can find but tries to catch birds if possible sometimes he does but mainly they get away he has a noisy bell to warn them.

So I followed him the other day and took some pictures he is a energetic little bloke.

But comes down for a chatj

Our driveway you can see across the road but not much further.

The colour is back again and the smoke so thick it shows up as cloud from space or so our news said tonight but no rain expected.

Crazy patterns on the ground

A bit clearer today but a yellow tinge in the light.

Cleaning up the back yard and the fallout from the bush fires

The chain saw is working well the little electric one is working and the shreadder.
 It's been a busy couple of weeks and staying inside a lot more as the air outside is not the best at the moment.

This is the branch very much in the way you have to duck to get under it .

Also a lot of growth has stoped the sun

but this fellow was very much in the way so he had to go

Going

Going

almost gone

We have a gap now for the sun to shine through

We have also had many bush fires up the coast but the smoke has been invading Sydney

Usually you can see the blocks of flats at Auburn and the cranes but all wiped out by the smoke.

This tree out the front has just died  maybe old age it's been here for a long time so it was cut down too

This is my driveway  lots of work to shred it all

But this was the reflections from the skies from the bush fires

It only lasted for a few hours

But I was surprised as we are some distance away from the actual fires.

The sun was a big red ball

As it set behind my house