Hi! Holger,

On 25/02/2015 9:40 AM, you wrote to me:

 HG> I hope all is well with you and yours despite the storms and bad weather
 HG> you've had hitting the west coast of Australia.

All Ok, thanks Holger.  We just recently had a category 5 cyclone skirt
around our countryside.  (At category 3 they're equivalent to a northern
hemisphere hurricane.)  Luckily there wasn't any local flooding and no
bridge closures this time.  We just suffered through some wind at times
(maybe about 60km/h gusts) and about 500ml of rain.

Prior to that, we experienced our first earthquake of any note in recent
times.  A 5.2 magnitude quake that rattled the house at ~0200hrs one Monday
morning.  It turns out that the epicenter was within 100kms northwest of
here.  My parrots' cages starting a noisy metallic rumbling on their
wheels.  I thought the house doggie was scratching himself while resting
against the cages, so I woke up to find myself hurling flaming oaths at the
mongrel.  It wasn't his fault!  :)

Oh, you said the west coast.  Yes.  They have had it tough there. Mostly
heat waves and bush fires.  The fires have been the worst.  (I re-named
this Fidonet node's name in the nodelist in honour of one of the areas in
the news at that time.)  But, this is Australia.  Bush fires have always
been a part of life's cycle here.  And, well, it is the driest continent
also.

How's your hip?  Are you walking alright?

Cheers,
Paul.

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