We live in a large country

The other day - it may have been yesterday (one forgets so easily at my age) - a tweet from @amazinmaps caught my attention.  I retweeted it to my modest little band of followers (currently 125 rather disparate souls).  It was the map of Australia below, which I think gives you a clear picture of how very big this island continent I now call home truly is.  
 

My mind has played tricks on me in the past when I've looked at maps of Australia - maybe before setting off on a long drive.  On a page the maps look the same as maps I used when I lived in Scotland.  In books of maps the territory you want to cross may fit on a page or across several pages if it's a route map from A to B via C, D or E.  But when I look at maps of Australia or parts of it I often forget scale when I'm trying to process how far a drive or flight might be.  One inch on a map of Scotland may be the same as one inch on a map of Australia or NSW but if you forget that wee word scale you run the risk of making a big mistake.  So when I saw this collage of other countries with NSW and southern Queensland about the same size as all of South Africa; all of Italy barely a fraction of West Australia the map caught my fancy.

Kersbrook, Adelaide Hills.  Pic: David Mariuz/EPA

This too makes think about the size of Australia and the contrasting forces that play upon the land and its people.  Down in South Australia thousands of folk are watching and / or fighting fires that have spread across the bone dry land to the north of Adelaide.  Homes have been consumed by unstoppable flames, vast tracts of bushland burnt to ash, dog and cat kennels razed to the ground and thousands, probably tens of thousands of domesticated, farmed and wild animals killed.  Fortunately there's been no loss of human life.  At the same time, up here in Canberra, we've been sheltering from the torrential rain of another massive summer thunderstorm.  It was not easy to hear what we were saying to one another because of ferocious rain drops pelting the roof of the pergola, the crack of lightning and roar of thunder near and far made me jump at times and our poor wee cat has been hiding under the bed.  Even I have been a source of comfort and reassurance for Thistle the cat this afternoon.

The storm is now subsiding, the rain abating.  Soon ten squillion snails and slugs will emerge from their hiding holes undergroud to assault the seedlings - sweet pea, sunflowers, peas and beans and other veg - planted not so very long ago.  Then we'll witness terror as the avenging arm of Spike the snail hunter casts out the little devils.  There will be carnage.  It will not be pretty.