Tag: flood waters

Australia · Christmas · clouds · daughter · family · floods · granddaughter · grandson · Mount Warning · subtropical weather · summer · Tweed Valley

Preparing for Christmas

Joanne6 Comments

I must have glanced out the window a thousand times today, and still there is no sign of Mount Warning. Our Sleeping Giant appears to be lost amid a steamy haze of mist and glare, now the water in the valley has finally started to evaporate. Consequently, we’ve had humid weather today.

Yesterday, however, the rain didn’t stop all day. Only a very small amount of rain was predicted, so the deluge took everyone by surprise, including my eldest daughter. She was working, so I had a cooking day planned with my granddaughter and my younger daughter Emma visited as well, with her baby. We had a wonderful time baking biscotti, rum and raisin shortbread, the pieces for a gingerbread house which Emma will decorate next week, and some gingerbread men, in preparation for Christmas Day.

By 2pm, when the rain hadn’t eased, I messaged my daughter to see how she was going. I was getting a tad concerned that she wouldn’t be able to get back home, as the road to her place is prone to flooding. She replied, saying she was finishing work early and heading back to my place. As it turned out, she couldn’t get home, so she and Aurora spent the night with me. Her husband, who had also gone to work in the morning, drove along the road to their home as far as he could, abandoned the car about five kilometres from home, then waded through waist-deep flood water to a point where someone could give him a ride home. They have a fifteen-year-old dog who had been left outside for the day, who he couldn’t bear to leave alone overnight!

Sitting up last night until 11pm, and drinking tea while chatting with my daughter was a treat that I haven’t had in many years. And waking this morning to a little girl’s voice saying “Nana” is a moment I will always treasure.

I can’t quite get my head around the fact that it’s just one week today to Christmas. This week, with the flooding, family visits, and trying to prepare ahead for Christmas Day, it has been quite overwhelming. I’m getting dreadfully behind with so many things, including reading blog posts, so hopefully this weekend I will have an opportunity to catch up a bit.

I have been wondering, has everyone made plans for Christmas? Or is 2020 the Christmas which will be remembered as the year when few people celebrated?

Australia · clouds · daughter · floods · granddaughter · grandson · Mount Warning · palm trees · rain · rivers · subtropical weather · summer · Tweed Valley

The Rain Continues …

Joanne16 Comments

There was a brief break in the rain this afternoon, so I ventured outdoors with the two dogs to have a bit of a look around. I have spent most of the last two days indoors, watching the rain pelting down and the wind ripping at the trees in my garden. As the first photo shows, looking down towards the pool, debris from the palm trees is piled beside the pool and floating in the water. There’ll be a big clean-up down there next weekend!

What looks like a massive pond in the valley is actually water-filled sugar cane fields.

Low-lying land pockets as far as the eye can see are filled with rain water.

And no surprises here, the mountain is still hiding behind a thick, white veil.

It looks like there are two rivers running parallel to one another. The actual river can be glimpsed behind the row of trees in the photo above. The other “river” in the foreground is flood water.

The river ran across roads in many areas, and people were advised not to go out unless they had to. My daughter, Hayley, went out as she had an appointment for her 20 week ultrasound. Luckily, her husband drove her to the appointment in their four-wheel-drive ute. From there they took the sealed envelope that had been given to them to our local balloon shop to have a special balloon made. The envelope contained a card with the gender of her baby on it. 🙂

Aurora, who is to be a big sister, was pretty excited about popping the balloon ~~ Mummy and Daddy were excited to see what colour confetti was in the balloon ~~

It’s a boy! ❤