As I've done the last few years, I just visited my family in Sydney (sadly, this time, my main tasks were to help them sell their home and move into care, but we still enjoyed some family time and brief outings), and some days we saw a lot of smoke over the Sutherland Shire; also, as my plane headed north over Aus. to Hong Kong (I had a 4 day stop-over there, before flying back to Manchester) smoke was clearly billowing from large areas of land - as per this slightly out-of-focus photo.

And now, sadly, we hear on the Beeb news and from Sandra, above, of record temperatures, rather than the much needed rain.