Cyclone Yasi.

As I am writing this, people in Cairns and surrounding area of north/east Queensland are waiting for a cyclone which is supposed to be on a par with hurricane Katrina. After all the flooding they’ve had in Queensland, now they are waiting on a huge cyclone. It is going to touch land about 11pm tonight, which is in 2 hours. I hope when I get up tomorrow it’s not total devastation.
Melissa and Luka are planning a flying visit next month. She is bringing her snowboard for me to store while she is overseas backpacking. I told her not to bring anything else as I would need another room to store all the stuff from her and Evan. When kids leave home they’re supposed to take everything with them, not keep coming back and asking me to store more stuff.lol
The painter has finally finished. The house looks great but I now have to get all the stuff which was in the wardrobes and is now on the bed of the spare room, and restore some sort of order in the both rooms. I expected him to give me time to empty each room and then when he had finished, put everything back. But I only got one day’s notice that he was coming. So he did all the moving of stuff from room to room for us. Every bit of the inside of the house was done.
The weather the last few days has been in the high 30’s and extremely humid. I can’t stand humid weather. Even the dogs are flaked out on the floor. Last night it was impossible to get to sleep as it was still 28C about 10pm, so I got up and watched a bit of TV for an hour, then went back to bed about 1am. And wouldn’t you know I got called in to work at 6.30am!
My mum’s sister was ill over Christmas and New Year. I would have visited her when we were in Melbourne mid January but her daughter didn’t tell me until a few days ago. Betty, my girlfriend in Melbourne, visited her and phoned me to tell me it wasn’t looking too good. She is 84 and has cancer. So I’ll have to visit her asap.
We had a great time in Melbourne with Evan when we saw Billy Connolly. Like us, he’s looking older but he can still talk non-stop for a couple of hours. It was good to enjoy a few laughs. After the show we took the tram back to our motel, which was much easier than finding a parking spot in Melbourne. Evan came halfway back with us then had a short walk to his house. I’d like to see more shows in Melbourne, but it’s just too expensive when we have to stay overnight and put the dogs in a kennel too.
OK off to bed to catch up on some badly missed sleep from last night. I hope the people of NE Queensland have a better night than expected.

Bye…..

Yes, a cyclone is horrible. I got this wierd thing going, whenever I have had troubles in life, I stop, in the midst of my panic or fear or sorrows, I stop and tell myself my life’s motto, silently to myself, I remind myself, “It could be worse”. And even though the current situation is horrible, just that though makes it better, easier for me to handle things. Praying helps also. If I was in themiddle of a cyclone, I would think that things could be worse, i.e. I could be in egypt where life is cheap and no one is safe from the terror and riots. I could be in Israel where no one , not even little children are promised another day of life, or I could be in NYC, where guys come back from the war and get killed at their own doorstep by cold-blooded muggers. No matter what our own situation, it can always , always be worse. I just went through a bad situation for myself,and praying and also knowing that it can always be worse made life easier for me. That doesn’t work for everyone. But it has always worked for me, to make the days shorter, to make the heavy work lighter, and even yes, even , it has put a smile on my face, knowingthat it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Peace

Orange Sorbet

February 2, 2011

The world is going mad at the moment with all this severe weather everywhere! Billy Connolly is good, but can be very vulgar!

FredOtter

Poor folks up in your Queensland. Flooding in so many places and now a hurricane going to hit its northeast. The atmosphere is all screwed up. I hate humid summer temps in the nineties and understand how you’re suffering. I just smiled reading of how daughter is over in Europe. Snowboarding too. Just GREAT your family.

Mama Blue

Not only do they want to store stuff, they move back themselves! LOL! I keep throwing my stuff out, but they fill in the empty spaces. Your house sounds like its coming along nicely. I could not bear that heat without a/c. I’m spoiled. 🙂 That’s sad for the flood victims. I hope the cyclone veered off. I’ll watch for it on the news. RYN: Hi! 🙂

RYN: I just saw video of the cyclone’s fury. They said it had downgraded to Category Two and no loss of life so far, so that was good to hear. Still, Category 2 is a STRONG storm. Prayers for the safety of those in Yasi’s path.

Smudgyrose

I’m amazed by the efficiency of the Queensland emergency services. With both the floods and the cyclone they seem to have been well prepared and quick to respond. Also, when they are doing the emergency briefings on TV, they always have someone translating it into sign language. It’s incredible that there has been no loss of life to date, and no serious injury either.

.Hopeful.