There's a real world out there?

You know you’ve been far too involved in internet matters when you step outside at midday and are incredibly surprised to discover that the suburbs around you are blanketed in smoke.

And I face a window when I sit at my computer, but I still didn’t notice.  Although I could blame that tree sitting right there, blocking the view.  Curse you, tree!  If it weren’t for you, I might have been noticing things!

Or not.  Probably not, actually.  Considering I was doing about six things at once and constantly getting side-tracked...

But there I was, when I finally left the house, standing by the side of the road, staring up at the sky in amazement. I mean, it was clear and blue just hours ago when I’d hung the washing out. The strangest thing was the fact that I couldn’t actually smell any smoke.  Surely you should be able to smell smoke when the sun is being blocked out by it? Or maybe I just have an incredibly useless sense of smell.

But there you go - Melbourne, blanketed in smoke.  It’s a little alarming, really.  Especially if, like me, you’d been watching the predictions of how the bushfires are all going to gang up and go off and bully quite significant areas of the state.  After which, they will presumably turn their sights on Melbourne.

Oh, I do so like a good panic.