Rain or Shine

Perth can’t decide whether winter is over or not. Yesterday the sun was shining a nice summery 27ºC and today it’s raining – not pouring, but it’s pretty dreary. Today started sunny and I had a boiling hot shower 1 1/2 hours after sun-up without turning on the electric water heater – the joys of solar power!

Perth had 130.8mm of rain in August, a little lower than the average of 135.1mm.

Despite a dry start to winter, Perth has received its average rainfall for winter 2007 and also for the past year, while other areas are still suffering from drought. North of Perth, from Geraldton to Shark Bay has had the lowest rainfall on record during the last year and Melbourne is in the same situation. Over winter Melbourne did receive its average rainfall, but this didn’t make up for the lack of rain over the past 12 months. Other areas still have serious to severe rainfall deficiencies, including south west Western Australia and south east Queensland.

That warm fuzzy feeling

Shawn at Kowai and Vanessa at Green as a Thistle were talking about their philanthropy, so I thought I’d join in. And thank you Shawn for adding me to your blogroll :)

I wonder if the only reason I give money is to get that warm, fuzzy feeling and feel good about myself. I suppose the only reason we do anything is to make ourselves feel good, whether it’s giving someone something or eating chocolate.

When I turned 18 I got a large amount of money from my (great) Aunt Mary. She died when I was a kid and the money was in trust for my brothers, cousin and I until we turned 18. I felt guilty that I was receiving so much money through an accident of birth when there were people in the world who had nothing. So I started donating to various organizations, not just conservation but also social justice and poverty-lessening ones. I got the habit from my mum. When I was little I would watch her filling in the forms and put the stamps on the envelops (ooh licking stamps!). I was amazed she had so much money, back then I got 20c for pocket money.