Torrential rain and big winds!

It's been raining cats and dogs in Sydney!  There was footage of shop owners in Chatswood desperately trying to keep the water out of their shops while their pavement furniture floated down the street.  People were frantically trying to clear leaves from the drain grids, but it wasn't helping and many business owners are going to be lodging large insurance claims.  Especially the bakery that had their flour and sugar bags soaked!  What a mess.

We (officially!) had the most rain for any October day in the past 25 years.  That's quite something.  Pity that most of it drained off into the sea then.

Big winds ripped the rooves off some houses and (as usual) there were lots of fallen trees everywhere. We live on top of a hill so the rain drained away from us and didn't really impact on us at all.  There were some awesome thunder and lightening effects to enjoy though. 

The Special Emergency Services do a great job of clearing up after these events.  I do believe that the SES is made up entirely of volunteers and I have to admire them.

In the days when we were living in Castle Hill, a neighbours tree fell down and was saved from crashing through our dining room ceiling by a fork in another tree!  The SES rocked up, cut up the offending dead tree and then removed all the wood.  I was astounded as they worked into the wee small hours of the morning.

As for seeing Penelope... I'm pretty sure it hasn't been on the circuit here yet.  Perhaps we'll get to see it over Christmas.  I'll definitely be making the effort to watch it.  Love the clothes!

April Blackbird (one day I am still going to type Blackbeard)