Sunday, February 22, 2009

Biscornu news

Since my last blogging I didn't have the time for a lot of stitching. I started and finished a biscornu for my mother. She fell in love with the Cherry Blossums Biscornu from The Sweetheart Tree, and I made that for her. It was finished just before they left.

Cherry Blossoms

My parents are now back in Europe and hopefully my father's health will become better. It's still a worry.

Stitchingwise I'm right now busy with 2 Quaker designs. Because one of these will be for an exchange (can't make up my mind yet which one...lol) I can't show you any pictures.


On a more sad note, the fires I told about in my last post were worse then I had thought. 209 people died in the fires, and there are still some people missing. 1800+ people lost their houses. From our town and nearby villages we mourn the loss of 21 people.

They got the man who is suspected to have lit the fires in our area, and he got whisked away direction Melbourne after people started gathering in front of the police station. I don't think it would be very healthy for him to be here. There are a lot of people who lost their loved ones, their homes and belongings, their animals. There are so many people traumatized by what they saw and heard. And the pictures of the surviving wildlife are heartbreaking also. There are not much survivors there though. The ones who did survived are wounded and in need. Koala bears who are instantly tame - needing the help of humans, drinking water out of a bottle. It makes me so sad to even think about them.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Night at Day

It wasn't not only incredibly HOT yesterday, but thanks to arsonists, it became one of the most terrible fires we ever encountered here. My husband is born here and never saw something like this. We have almost every year bushfires here around, but yesterday was so terrible that we all here are shaken.

Whole communities are wiped out. We were in fear for the house of our Uncle and Aunt, everybody knows someone who had to be evacuated. Our favorite walking area got burned down, lots of houses lost, most likely at least one dead, may be more. All around their are estimated 40 people dead. 26 are confirmed. No clue how much people lost their homes, their belongings - their animals. At the shopping center - before things turned really ugly, I met a woman who was terrified for her horses. The houses, the cattle, the wildlife. I'm not a really weak person, but while I'm writing this, tears are standing in my eyes.

And I wonder, how in heaven can an arsonist live with something like that? Obviously they don't care about the loss of precious possessions, the loss of homes, safety, the loss of things that can't be replaced. The life of animals they don't care much about either. But how in heaven can you live with the knowledge you killed people? I don't think an "oopsie" will do. Boy I hope they get them and put them for long long years to come in jail.

We are safe here, be it that our oldest daughter wasn't able to come home. The highway is closed down, so are most of the other roads out of town, trains don't run either. And everything is filthy with black soot.

Picture taken in the afternoon. It should have been still sunny. A moment before it was, then the sun went away and the light turned more and more orange. This picture shows pretty well the correct color of what we saw
Fire 1


20 Minutes later it was dark. While there should be normal daylight still
20 minutes later

view from the backyard

The next morningThe next morning 2



What concerns stitching, I finished page 5 of "Coming to Life. 11 more pages to go. I also finished a biscornu that I started while being with my Dad in hospital. But I can't show a picture of that. It's for an exchange.

Coming to Life - Page 5 completed

My father is doing better but my parents are looking forward to go home next week. With him being out of breath so easy, we can't do much. There is no German tv, they don't speak a word English and they just want to get home - back to their normal lives. Which is understandable.