Fresh air at last

This weekend the haze over Singapore has cleared and it's wonderful. The sky is blue again and the air is fresh and clear, well nearly clear, we are still living in a city after all

This is the view from our balcony taken a few days ago in the midst of the haze

and this is the same view taken this morning...what a difference!

 After 70 days of haze we can breathe fresh air again, exercise outdoors and ditch wearing masks, although if I'm honest I only once wore a mask outside as I found it just too stifling and hot to bear.

Everyone seems delighted to have the sunshine back and the gloomy mood that had been blanketing Singapore has lifted with the haze, hopefully for good but time will tell.

Unfortunately parts of Indonesia still has terribly polluted air from the fires, many people have died due to the effects of breathing in toxic air, wildlife too, particularly Orang Utans which are struggling to survive anyway thanks to loss of habitat and poaching. Many fires are still burning out of control and vast acreage of rain forest and peatland has been destroyed for ever. Due to world wide coverage of the worst 'burning season in living memory' there seems to be more interest in looking at ways of preventing this situation happening again but Indonesia has a reputation for corruption and chaotic organisation and palm oil production is big business and worth millions of dollars so it seems unlikely that Indonesia will change it's ways quickly or very willingly