After the Flood

Things have pretty much returned to normal, albeit a slightly chilly and damp version of normal where it rains from time to time and we remember that winter is on its way a lot.

We phoned the swimming pool on Thursday morning half-expecting the session to be cancelled due to too much fresh water in the pool, but they escaped the worst and so we toddled down there listening to reports on the radio about how dreadful everything was and how you shouldn't go on the roads unless necessary.

So we got there in pretty good time and Eloise had a nice time swimming. She's working on Kicking Like a Grown Up with straight legs, ankles together and kicking from the hip. And when she gets it right she rockets along. Fiona says she'll start on the front crawl next time.

Nicole got called into work on Thursday night because people couldn't get into work for whatever reason; you know, their car had been washed away, the roads were blocked or underwater, they didn't feel well.

She ended up working the night. An extra one to tag onto the front of the nights she was due to work.

On Friday Eloise got dropped off at Nursery, again in pretty good time, and I toddled up to Mount Coot-tha with the dogs to see Simpson's Falls in full effect. The circular walk involved a traverse across the falls which are normally very tame if not on the border of actual absence, so that was out of the question. So we wandered down to the bottom of the hill, stopping off to look at waterfalls on the way.

We went to the brook today for the first time since the flood to find a massive section of the bike track had actually been washed away. Nicole said that it hadn't been like that when she had a look on Thursday, so it must have subsided since then, but a good twenty metres, OK ten, was missing, with the concrete slabs tilting precariously into a new duckpond which wasn't there a few days ago.

Amazement of amazements: after we'd walked the dogs and Eloise had befriended - at length - a terrier called Meg and her owner - workmen were out fixing the bike track up and laying down a new path.

We whipped out the lights in the evening for a bit of practice. I took Eloise's picture. And Eloise took mine. Maybe that will pop up here soon.