Life Is Too Busy!

A quick up-date:

* Holidays are over :(
* Kids are back at school and I am back at work
* Dear Husband is still recovering from his work going underwater. He has had very few days off since the floods hit.....and is still going!
* Australia Day was a family bbq....nothing better.
* We are intensely watching weather forecasts for Tropical Cyclone Anthony crossing the Queensland coast....more bad weather!
* Family history research has continued to be interesting.......I am still trawling through ancestry.com for information.
* I bought a new lamp for the lounge room...pic later!
* The dogs continue to bounce around the yard and house in their own contented way. We put them in a kennel for the first time ever when we went up the coast after new year's and they weren't even excited to see me when I came back! What was that all about!
* I have joined a reading group! The plan is that all books are to be easy to read and it's a great excuse to get together and have some quality girl time! I like it!
* And Miss Eleven is continuing to enjoy her reading....as you can see!

Rocklea Flooding

My husband had the opportunity to go up in a helicopter in the middle of Brisbane's devastating flood, to assess damage to his work. He took these pictures from the air. His work went underwater, but as you can see, so did a whole lot of other businesses!

More Flood Pictures

My husband had to make his way into work this morning to the suburb of Rocklea as water was rising quickly and they were trying to move stock out. Sadly, he wasn't able to get through (he did move stock at another office on the other side of the river though). The clearing out of the company office proved futile as the water was rising too quickly for the enormity of the job. However, all are safe and DH did get some good photos. Now, they are waiting for the waters to recede and for the clean up to begin.

As I write this, many people who live in and around the Brisbane and Bremer Rivers are living in emergency shelters while their homes go underwater. Most Brisbane people know someone (or know someone who knows someone) who is affected by this flood. Devastation is everywhere and as a Brisbanite, born and bred, it makes me cry to see the footage coming out of our televisions. I was a little girl in the 74 floods (hmmm...giving my age away a bit there!) so my memories of it are very dim, but to watch footage of places so familiar to me being destroyed by flood water is heart-breaking.

So tonight, I am thinking of all of those people who have lost so much and I'm thanking God for the emergency workers, volunteers etc who are helping them! And I'm thinking of the city that is my home!

South East Queensland Floods....Local Pictures!!!

I Should....

I should be writing this blog post on happy things.....the holiday that we just had in Maroochydore (pictures waiting to be posted!), the New Year's Punch Party, the new camera that I bought, a few exciting new pieces of furniture that the post Christmas sales just forced me to buy!!!

I should also be writing about the not-so-nice mundane things in our lives....the Superteen being rather sick and having a blood test for Glandular Fever (fingers crossed for a negative result!), husband's middle ear infection that got him an extra albeit painful day extra on his holidays, etc etc!

However, as it sit and write this I can still hear the rain falling outside and my mind has turned to thoughts of the many, many families who tonight are homeless while their houses fill with water. I am also thinking about the people in Toowoomba who were going about their usual business in the centre of town when a wall of water roared in and swept them away. I am thinking of the Queensland farmers who, once again, bear the brunt of mother's nature's brute force by watching their income wash away.

While we are high and almost dry, we have had a few flooded pergola/drainage issues through all of this. But our lot seems so trivial in comparison to the huge devastation across our state.

So, if you can spare just a few cents, I encourage you to make a donation. I'm sure that every little bit would be appreciated by all of those stoic people who are truly in desperate need. Official donation links are here:

Queensland Government:
http://www.qld.gov.au/floods/donate.html

St Vincent De Paul:
https://vinnies.org.au/appeals-processor-national

The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes.
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins,
Strong love of grey-blue distance
Brown streams and soft dim skies
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!

A stark white ring-barked forest
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes,
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die-
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold-
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land-
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand-
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.

Dorothea Mackellar