I know I’ve written about the weather a bit lately, but it’s been so extreme that it’s been kinda hard to focus on anything else. For the last 24 hours we’ve experienced high winds (upwards of 100 kmph) here – winds that are still buffeting the sides of the house as I type. I had to move a big fallen tree branch off our driveway this afternoon, our backyard is strewn with bark and all kinds of other debris and bushfires rage in other parts of the state.
In addition to the high winds we’ve had torrential rain, dust storms and alternating bouts of dry heat and muggy stickiness. I made the mistake of leaving my bedroom window open and my freshly changed bed is now covered in a light sprinkling of grit and dust. Our once white dog is now a charming shade of nutmeg.
If all that wasn’t bad enough, we lost power for over seven hours. No air con. No fridge. No telly – a fact that usually wouldn’t bother me, but the tennis is a constant during the last two weeks of January here and I was all geared up for a good session. And no water, because we had no electricity to power our water pump. It’s been a right blast.
Luckily we’ve got our power back now and it’s been on for long enough that I have started to relax and think that perhaps it’s here to stay. I’m putting off the resetting of my clock radio though – it’s a task that I find really irritating, and I’m not quite ready to commit to it yet.
Stormy pic from here.
The post title is the opening line from The Teams (1889) from Australian bush poet Henry Lawson, and you can read the rest of it here.
I would take some of your stormy weather. Sunny and warm in SA is getting a bit predictable.
Heh, that’s global climate change for ya. We’ve been having massive snow dumps here in Vancouver. Well, massive for our usually temperate climate. A couple of weeks back the snow broke some branches off a 20-metre fir tree out back. They fell onto the power lines, blew the transformer with an almighty BANG, plunged the street into darkness, and caught fire. Luckily they burned out with no damage to the house, but not before we evacuated kids and dog in haste out into the snowy night.
Gees FiL! That’s one way to liven up a quiet evening. Very glad to hear that all is well and that no serious damage was done.
AFM – you poor dear!