We’ve had seriously smoky air in Victoria over the past few days because of the forest fires in the neighbouring Washington state. The level of pollution varies a bit day-to-day, depending on the wind direction and speed. On the first day of my daughters school year, we went outside to take obligatory back-to-school photo, and the light was beautiful. The wind blew some more smoke in over the day, and the children were moved indoors during the recess. This didn’t dampen my daughter’s enthusiasm about being re-united with her friends after six months consisting of the the Coronavirus lockdown in March followed by a rather socially isolated summer holiday.
Today, I took our dog for a walk earlier than usual, hoping that the mist rising off the soccer pitch where we usually go would trap the smoke particles. The air did seem quite fresh at first, but as it warmed up, the fog disappeared, and the smoke came in, so we didn’t stay out for long. A teacher in me made a mental note to use this as an example of psychrometrics in the thermodynamics class that I am going to teach (yet again remotely) next term.
They say the Earth is healing because of COVID-induced slowdown of human activity. Naturally, there are good things about forest fires too,.. once we look back at them as things of the past.
So I think the my daughter’s smoky first school day photo represents our mood in this crazy year quite well – we are still well and somehow remain positive despite being continually reminded that what’s going on in the outside world is utterly beyond our control.
