Flooded Ol' City...... Again

Hi!

Well. Sunday evening is here. That seems pretty quick. Warm too, tho thankfully not as horrible as it usually is, thank you La Nina! Am a bit early even for the bizarre show tunes radio program and even mah glass of wine. There are a few twittering birds out there, although I think the lorikeets have followed the food elsewhere because they're not out there hollering away non-stop! Still, it's turning into a lovely evening, preceded by lovely sunny day, for the most part. Hey, it least it didn't rain, like usual. Life is good!

So work. Well, it's good....... The only thing is we haven't been able to go back since Tuesday afternoon when we got booted out because of the rain and impending floods. So there was a huge mass exodus from the city at around 1pm. It was one of the stranger things I've seen. And from then it was just wait and see. And see we did. Wednesday morning my neighbor and I went for a good long walk around the Brisbane Riverside-ish to scope out what was happening and to get an idea of what was gonna get worse. (That photo on the left is Southbank, right in front of the theatres... a couple hours after we were there it was completely flooded, right to the side doors of the theatres). All I can say is we were amazed, neither of us having been through anything like this before besides earthquakes and lively storms. A flood is different and scary. And this is the third big one on record for poor Brisbane - 1893 and again in 1974..... Thankfully we here in our part of Paddington (that photo on the right of palace with the rusted roof thankfully hiding behind the abundant palms, is our place) weren't affected. But others didn't fare so well, as I'm sure you've seen on TV. The two neighborhoods closest to me, Milton and Rosalie, were badly flooded. Even Suncorp Stadium, where I just saw the U2 concert a mere month ago, flooded. Which is a little surreal because they're all within a 5-15 minute walk from me (down a really steep hill I might add). But Paddington is built mainly on big hills, so we were always going to be fine. So yes, that meant no work for the rest of the week. Which was good and bad. Bad because all you could really do was sit and watch TV as the flood crept up and in. Most of the roads were closed. The city center was for the most part a ghost town - no power meant nothing could open and businesses closest to the river flooded. It was crazy. But of course not being able to go anywhere was kinda good in that we didn't, couldn't go to work all week! Waahhoooo! But the building escaped any harm so we're back in tomorrow. It had to happen eventually.

And then there was the weekend. It was a good and somewhat productive in that most of the shops in my 'hood reopened so I was able to stock up on eggs and lettuce, tho no milk, the panicked locusts cleaned that right out. Got the chores done. Read. Friday evening was nice, went over to Jason and Clare's with the usual 2 other suspects for pizza and games. Everyone was thankfully well clear of any flood business. It was just nice to be able to get out of the house and spend an evening not thinking about flood stuff. It's always a good evening with those folks!

And, well, that's actually about it. No work, no errands, no roads, no shops, etc meant things stayed pretty quiet, with the exception of our mini-Adventure on Wednesday. I must say, nice as it was to be away from work for a bit of time, I never want to be away from work, or anything for that matter, under those circumstances ever again. Too scary, too creepy and way too stressful. And I didn't get flooded, imagine the poor folks that did, or died. Sad. Bloody Mother Nature..... don't piss her off!

So there you are. Sorry for the short and bit of a downer check-in, but that's the news from here in pretty much a nutshell! Hopefully life will get back to normal over the coming week. I would extend a hearty invitation to come on down and visit but they say cyclone season is kicking off about now, so you might want to hold off until we're well clear of all this weather business. Say around, March, April and then through to October should be good! So hope you're all well up there! Feel free to drop a line!

BYE!
J!