take two

once again we're surrounded by flooding without being flooded

must be the freak two-in-a-hundred year storm:

Toufic El-Ahmor, the owner of Riversdale Fruit, described it as the heaviest downpour since the freak one-in-a-hundred year storm that hit Melbourne's north and east last month when 100 millimetres fell in two hours. (The Age)

Sometime around four I was woken by the loudest clap of thunder in a hundred years, which suggested that this little pocket may have been the very eye of the storm. Earlier Flo had been eyeing the window anxiously, beyond barking, freakishly still and unsquirming, the stillest she had been in a century.
It was a tiny window of opportunity to relate calmly to each other. And pat her head.

---

Comments: take two

I'm not one for conspiracy theories (unless of course they are really off the wall and therefore highly likely to be true*) BUT has the weather become decidedly bolshie ever since Edwin Maher and his amazing dancing technicolour dream pointers left the Yabby Sea?

*Vladimir Petrov and Bob Menzies had a raging affair for years ... think it was them, or it might have been Jason and Kylie ... so easy to get them mixed up when you're in a privet hedge looking through the viewfinder of a camera the size of an early McCubbin decorated match box. Anyway there was some hanky panky going on somewhere, sometime and I've still got the dageurrotypes.
Posted by Sedgwick at January 30, 2004 03:41 PM

re * thought the famous footage of Mrs P's shoe
was 'shoddy'...

Edwin is missed. The weather has certainly been a bit non-specific lately, unlike the storms which seem to be very suburb specific, down to the blue square of the Melways. Heard a resident of this very smallish suburb talk about flood damage on yabby sea radio but our street/blue square luckily escaped.
But maybe there is a bolshie element given the
'well-heeled' suburbs that were in the path of the latest. Another shoddy theory...
Posted by boynton at January 30, 2004 03:57 PM

Weird dog stuff. We washed the wonderdog yesterday, which always makes her a bit peculiar - my theory being she is unsmelly and like an elderly aunt discovered without her makeup in the supermarket. Come the 4am thunder WHACK KABLOWIE ROOOARRR.. she marched around the house until we popped her on the bed.. but today she is refusing to go out at all, even for her wee. Huh? Maybe this is her way of mourning Edwin Maher and his pointed certainties..
Posted by David Tiley at January 30, 2004 05:05 PM

just as I was about to post something on psychic terriers...
The unsmelly theory is right I'd say. (small footnote: Doug (in his 'entire' days) became particularly excited when Abbey the labrador was wearing her 'bath perfume' - Martha Gardners.
Obviously some powerful aphrodesiac component in the wool wash. I was almost tempted to try some myself to see if human males might react in the same way.)

I was just interested to see Flo's abundant madness quelled by storm. Maybe the external electrical activity neutralised her own wierd wiring.
Posted by boynton at January 31, 2004 01:45 PM

"I was almost tempted to try some myself to see if human males might react in the same way"

You were interested in the reaction of blokes attracted to Martha's wool mix, the main constituent of which was metho?

We have a soft spot for the methylatté set?
Posted by Sedgwick at January 31, 2004 02:54 PM

metho?
me thought it was eucalyptus that set Doug off.

Luckily I never tried out that theory either

http://www.bellinghamflowershop.com/product.asp?id=3946
Posted by boynton at January 31, 2004 03:17 PM

Riversdale Road is flooded out (like half of Melbourne..) I wonder if it was named after presettlement topography, a kind of subtle reminder that water pouring down the gradient is not completely surprising..
Posted by David Tiley at January 31, 2004 03:55 PM

My mum swears by Martha's DYI wool mix recipe. Methylated spirits, Lux flakes and eucalyptus oil. (She's been known to take the odd swig of cooking metho.)
Posted by Sedgwick at January 31, 2004 05:02 PM

What's happening to the world? We've cancelled a trip to Cambridge - some parts cut off by floods!
Posted by Nora at January 31, 2004 11:19 PM

David - yes and they needed a boatman on Glen Ferrie there too...
the water was very High up this way too apparently.

Might try the DIY version, Mr S.
For non-medicinal purposes of course.

You always take the weather with you, Nora.
Saw snow storm pictures from Germany on TV.
Adjusted the rabbit ears, and it still looked bad.
Posted by boynton at February 1, 2004 08:46 PM