Hi everyone, sorry for being absent for so long but life got in the way…as it does occasionally.

So, my granddaughter arrived early – an unplanned caesarean. It was a very traumatic time for the whole household and caused a lot of upheaval but thankfully our daughter and her new baby girl are doing fine. We can all look forward to enjoying the good times ahead.

We were graced with a period of calm before the storm, and I actually mean “the STORM”.

92 SECONDS OF MOTHER NATURES FURY

Yes, we did get the area storm warning (three separate warnings actually).

I was watching the storm roll in from my home office window, thinking how my plants would appreciate the rain, guessing the main body of the storm would probably follow the ranges and pass above or below us, as per normal.

The eye of the storm never hits us but there’s always a first time for everything.

Then I hear “ting- ting”, and the occasional pea sized hail is bouncing joyfully in the back yard.  “Wow. The weatherman actually got it right. There is hail.” I happily mocked the weatherman’s report – as you do because how accurate are they.

Okay, maybe there’s more hail than rain now, but still nothing to worry about. –

The pea-sized hail then morphed into golf balls, suckering into the softened earth, and occasionally exploding against my garden rock wall.  NOW, things are getting serious, golf-ball hail can cause some real damage.

AND THEN– baseball hail joined their fellow hail friends in a party of annihilation.

They smashed holes through roof iron, solar panels, and windowpanes. Shattering roofing tiles like cheese crackers, some even punched through my neighbours roof and ceiling before hitting household furniture.

CARS…: They had shattered windscreens, some with gaping holes where the hail had gone right through, side mirrors hanging limp or broken on the ground, and huge dents on the vehicle panels. Poor defenceless cars, we couldn’t save them.

THE SOUND ……it’s really hard to explain. Deafening. Violent. An overload of noise, matching the visual display of destruction.

As quick as it started it was over, leaving only the gentle tinkle of water dripping off slick surfaces and gurgling down storm drains.

92 SECONDS LATER: – No power to our house, 3 trashed vehicles in the driveway, 2 smashed tin garden sheds, 2 damaged aircon systems, 20 shattered solar panels and a whole house roof that needs replacing (and we probably had the least obvious damage in the street).

BUT: 92 SECONDS also made strangers friends and reinforced the benefit of knowing your neighbours. It reminded us to appreciate each other and that we are not alone.

(I know what happened here was not as destructive as some other major weather events around the world, but it was no less devastating for those who were impacted the hardest. The damage created in less than 2 minutes will take years and over a billion dollars to fix. To me, this is a significant event.)

I’M NOW BACK ON MY BOOK JOURNEY