Hot as hell

For those of you that live outside of Australia or have been living under a rock somewhere, you will not know that the temperature in southern Australia has broken all time records. I heard something about some record being broken from 1908 and then I heard something about driest January on record and now there is the record for the most consecutive days about 40 degrees (Celcius) and also the most consecutive Total Fire Ban days.

For the past week, the temp at the farm has been:

Monday 26

Tuesday 38

Wednesday 44

Thursday 45 (it was 46.5 degrees in the dairy!)

Friday (today) 44

Night-time temps have barely dipped below the high 20's and last night, I don't think it dropped below 30.

However you look at that, it is just hot hot HOT. And tomorrow, it is supposed to be around the mid 30's. And then heating up again for next week. It is so hot here that even the flies aren't flying!!!

We have a reverse cycle air conditioner, but in actual fact, all it does it keep the living room cool. The rest of the house is like an oven. I feel for the kids trying to sleep in this weather, particularly when Tom had to start back at daycare on Thursday. He dragged himself out of bed that morning. We don't own a pool, and when it is hot, we usually find a trough that is brand new, or that the cows haven't been to in a while, and have a dip in that. But this weather was just too hot to venture out into the paddocks with littlies.

So Mark and I went down to one of the rural supply stores and bought a stock trough. Problem was, they had no round ones in stock, so we had to get what is referred to as a 'coffin trough' (long and skinny) and then, in the searing heat of Wednesday, unhook a desired trough, and reconnect up the new one, take the old one - which was now going to be the swimming pool - to the house and get some water in it. Gawd it was hot work! However, the kids love it and have been in and out of it over the past couple of days. It really has saved us (and my sanity) from hot, irritable kids.

I should also update on the whole tooth saga...

By the 2pm dental appointment, the pain in my tooth was causing significant searing pain all over the right side of my head, and I was starting to feel awful - weak, achy...just generally poor. I could barely move and the pain was constant. Unrelenting. I walked into the rooms and when Peter asked me how I was, I nearly burst out crying. I just felt so bad. So he sat me down, took an xray and then performed some tests on the tooth, one which involved putting dry ice on my tooth. I felt nothing, so it was confirmed that the nerve was dead and I probably had an infection. The xrays showed I did have abcesses on the roots of my tooth, hence why I was feeling so crappy.

Peter gave me a local (ahhhhhhh) and the pain - ALL THE PAIN - just disappeared. I told Peter I was coming back every 3 hours for an injection!!! Put simply, he cleaned the infection out, put some medication into my tooth and sealed it with a temporary filling. I am on antis to clear up infection 100% and then I go back in a couple of weeks to have the root canal. The only pain associated with this proceedure, is the pain to my wallet. Struth, root canals are not cheap!!!!