Catastrophic fire danger

Tuesday:

The kids' school and my workplace are closed today due to the risk of bushfires - I don't know if that has ever happened before. The library I work in is right next to a National Park. My colleagues are working at a different location but I stayed home to be with the children. We are on the highest risk rating, "catastrophic". The forecast is for 37C, which is not unusual for Australia, but also very windy and we've been in drought for a long time so everything is very dry. There are dozens of bushfires further up the coast and several people have died and many homes destroyed. I'm not really sure what makes today different and such a high risk for the Sydney area, when there are actually no fires nearby, but I assume the RFS know what they are talking about. Stay safe everyone.

A few days ago my boss came over to my desk and said she had bad news for me. I assumed it would be to say she couldn't accept my daughter for work experience in the library after all. But no, it was that they have received a new directive that they can't hire casuals (to replace permanent staff on leave) during the TAFE holidays. They only need one or two people in the library over the break so they have to use permanent staff. As I am casual - almost constantly employed full time so far - it means about 8 weeks with no work over December/January. I said that was fine, no problem. Inside I was jumping up and down in delight! I never wanted to work during the school holidays anyway, it's such a hassle to organise things for the kids, but I was agreeing to be obliging. I'm still making myself indispensable. I want to always be the first person they choose to hire! For example I'm doing most of the little kids' storytimes now even though I still find it scary, the usual person has been on leave or busy and no one else wants to do it. Anyway, so the "bad news" was really good news for me.

Update 7:30 pm: still no fires on this side of the river, but there is currently one in the National Park right next to my work. Possibly only couple of hundred meters away. Small but not yet under control. It’s around 10-15 mins drive away from home. Something to keep our eye on.