Bracing for Summer

Andrew is, anyway.  I'm liking this back view of him in his new Firey's pants and braces.  I'm especially loving the red braces.  They're fireproof too, though as we've joked, if your braces are in a position to be on fire, you have more problems than just your braces!   

His helmet is here too.  It's a new kevlar one and it weighs a tonne.  Still, we've heard about one guy who had a tree fall over and pin his head between the tree and the truck, and he walked away thanks to his kevlar helmet, so here's to kevlar!  We'll just have to build neck muscles like rubgy players to wear them. 

Andyroo is still waiting for his own new fireproof coat to arrive.  You can't go on the roster to go to bushfires until you have all your own new gear. 

On Saturday, we popped into the local communications brigade to see what they get up to.  Andrew, being a radio nut, is interested in joining them too. He's got a bit of a sabbatical from work coming up and I think he plans to fill it with all sorts of interesting activities.

The local guys have a brand new vehicle. It's very high tech and comfy.   It looks a bit like this one from South Australia, and inside it reminded me of some high tech surveillance vehicle from an episode of X-Files. 

 
 As the folks there said, if you don't feel up to fighting a fire, you can still be of great help.  If they ever even see the fire, then they are too close, and they even have air conditioning in the new truck, so you could be doing your community a great service in comfort.  :)   They seem like a nice chatty group too, as you might expect from people in a communication role.

With things gearing up for summer here, our own Brigade is really coming to life.  On the weekend, nine of us went to a local dam and practiced drafting water out of it to fill the tanks of the vehicles.  They're a nice crowd to hang with, and it was very interesting.  It certainly is helping my brain to expand to be learning all these news things, and it will have to expand even more in the next few weeks, as I have a radio course to do this coming Saturday, and then the two weekends after that will be spent at the intro to fire fighting courses. 

It's worked out well, really, as Andyroo will be home to mind the dogs. I didn't like the idea of them being alone for two long days in a row.  They're too used to having me home nearly all the time.

In non-Firey news, I would guess Heroic Plans would be about three weeks, mabe a tad more, away from completion of the first draft.  I'm over the highest plot peak and coasting down the other side to a happy ending.  After that I can get into the first edit of Freya and the Hairy Goddess.  I'm looking forward to that! 

I'm having all sorts of fun making Amigurumi for Christmas, but I can't show you, and it's killing me!  I have such cute new characters here now, just waiting for their time to go to new homes.  Ah well, here's Red Riding Mouse and her Granny.  I made them a good while back but it was before I started blogging so I don't think they've ever had an outing on here.

I couldn't bear to part with them, so they sit on my windowsill by the kitchen table and watch me make more cute critters.

Not sure how blogging will go in the next couple of weeks, but I'll do my best to post twice a week as usual, even if it gets a bit hectic. I'd love to play you a tune I have recently learned on my Lyre, but need to check with its composer first.  It's a pretty personal bit of music.

For now, may your life be filled with purpose and may you find many things to do to keep your mind bright.  As Heinlein said, specialisation is for ants!