OMG it's hot!

Mid twenties here and people are diving into the sea left right and centre. It got to 30 at work this week and we're melting and the fans are going like crazy. The house keeps its heat overnight and has been mid 20s inside in the morning. Mish had the blinds down all day yesterday to keep the heat out - this is like being in Sydney - unheard of in lil ole Welly! And the sun is blazingly hot in the mid twenties.

We even have a bushfire - about 100 hectares of cool temperature rainforest in Arthur's Pass in the South Island is gone. That should be perpetually dripping, not burning.

Tonight there's some promising low, dark cloud coming up from the south. We haven't had clouds for days. We're even watering the grass! Now that's extreme.

Here's a fat monarch butterfly, shot on the weekend. There are loads of them about at the moment, guzzling swan plants and getting ready to evolve from larva to pupa and flutterby. 56 million monarchs are on their way to Mexico right now, heading south for the winter; funny how they are flying here and there at the same time.