ACCORDING to the calendar at least the southern Summer is officially over. But it's a season that won't be easily forgotten - and for all the wrong reasons.
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The horrific Summer of 2019/20 was the nearest we're likely to come to a mini Armageddon in a lifetime.
Crippling drought led into choking dust storms and a record run of 30 degree plus temperatures that set the stage for the real horrors of Lithgow's most destructive bushfires on record and seemingly endless days of bushfire smoke whiteout .
Then came the heaviest rain in years, dousing the fires but flooding a number of properties.
To end the season on its biblical theme came pestilence - the nerve challenging potential of coronavirus.
Only missing were those Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse but they were probably biding their time somewhere out there in the charred countryside.
Despite the calendar entry we're not out of the woods yet. But at least coming into Autumn those once bone dry woods are no longer the forests of fear of just weeks ago.
Glorious green
ON a brighter note take a run (drive or ride if you must) up to Hassans Walls to take in the wonder of the amazing transformation of the countryside from the recent rain.
As far as you can see the countryside is a glorious emerald green. And with more Autumn rain predicted it can only get better.
It's a reminder that we really do have our own little bit of paradise, far from those soulless towers of the big city. Anyone for a few lines of 'the green green grass of home'? Tom Jones never had it so good.
The good, the bad, and the crazy
YOU will get mixed response when you bring up the subject of Uber and the impact on Sydney's professional cabbies.
But Uber has an ever increasing following and it's a segment of the cabbies that are contributing to their own woes.
Most cabbies are polite, courteous and good to travel with. But just about every visitor has a tale of some Sydney cabbies taking advantage of the unfamiliarity of visitors from the bush.
Just last week an associate of the column was taken on a roundabout route from Central to a nearby destination at a cost of $21.
The return trip by the familiar route was $12. Go figure.
Not that long ago the column and some friends were returning to their city hotel after a late night harbour cruise.
Sheer terror set in when the cabbie ran three red traffic lights and missed by a whisker collision with two buses.
When we asked to be let out came the scary reply .. '.. Don't worry! Jesus is travelling with me tonight!'
That's OK for JC but we didn't have the same tricks up our sleeve.
It all ended when the cabbie collided with a bollard at our hotel driveway. Hope JC fixed that one before his boss called a 'please explain'. (We hasten to add we hear no such complaints from our Lithgow service).
