Working Through

I have been feeling very bad for the past three weeks since the bush fires, but now I am very pleased to say that I feel like my old self again. I thought the self that I know best had desserted me and in her place was this jittery, negative mess. I am very glad she didn't stay around any longer.












I took this photo on the morning of the 7th Feb because this Flowering Gum was finally out in bloom and looked very nice in the clear morning light.






This is how the above tree looks now: dessicated.
You can see how all the dry leaves have fallen on the ground....looks better than the blackened earth

Post traumatic stress syndrome or in old terms shell shock. This is a disorder that can develop after exposure to one or more traumatic events that caused or even threatened grave physical harm.

I just kept remembering the more dangerous times of the bush fires, particularly when I tried to sleep. It was as though my thoughts were in a loop or on rewind, a re experience or flashback of the fire glow all around the hills surrounding the house, the ride out of the hills by myself and driving back through the burnt out landscape, putting out fires around the house. Compared to what other people have been through, this perhaps doesn't seem very traumatic but to me it was.

Then there was also the sadness of losing the trees and surrounding flora. I didn't realise that I was so upset about the surrounding landscape in which we lived. It seems trivial in the face of what others have lost, but I guess it affected me.

But as I say, I feel heaps better now and we have had a clean up around the back of the house. Could have done without the tiger snake that jumped out of one of the pots in the wheel barrow though. !!!!!

We had one of our outdoor lunches, the surrounds are not all soft and leafy green,as they used to be, but very nice all the same. We are very lucky to still have a deck to have lunch on and we realise a lot of people aren't so lucky.











I can’t begin to tell you about the builder’s visit last week..... (the one the insurance company sent) He sounded a little stressed when we spoke to him in the morning around 8am and I think his day just got worse from then on.

For a start he was from North Balwyn/ Doncaster ( not that I’ve got anything whatsoever against North Balwyn) ….but he was quoting for restoration in the country around Callignee. Totally burnt out. He couldn’t even turn his car around on a dirt road, his wheels kept spinning.

He arrived at our place about 7.45pm at night and stayed 10 – 15 mins. He took no measurements. We didn’t even get to show him everything….he kept saying
“What not more work”
“How am I supposed to quote for that” “
“You’ll have to help me a lot on this”
“What replace a water tank…how?”

He was totally over whelmed by his whole day

“Everyone wants to tell their story”
“I only had a couple of tomatoes for lunch”
“Can you show me the way to my next quote address” It was getting dark by then….so of course I did. .
“Can you show me how to get back to Traralgon”

So you can imagine how we were feeling. We’ve heard other insurance jobs are going well and Yes I have contacted the insurance assessor to tell him we didn’t have much confidence in his appointed builder and to plead for a local one.


Another builder has now visited and he was very good about looking at all the damage.







This little wallaby is around the house quite alot at the moment. We have been feeding him vegetable scraps and any green foliage we have come across as there is nothing for him to eat around at the moment.