Queensland floods
I’m not going to name names, but two people remarked to me last week that the Queensland floods wouldn’t be that bad, because all the houses have stilts, so everyone up there would be fine.
I wasn’t about to get into an argument about it, but at the time I had my doubts. I suspect the people involved (both a generation older than me) have in their minds that the whole state is filled with “traditional” architecture of the Queenslander style — in particular those with stumps/stilts that let’s the house sit above ground level.
I may not have been to Queensland for twenty years, but I know it’s simply not true. As in any modern urban area, places like Brisbane (under threat now from floods) and the many regional cities have a wide variety of architecture, and traditional structures like stilts may or may not be integrated into modern designs, particularly as local drainage systems improved and the risk of termites and other pests (a reason for the stilts) may have been less prominent.
In any case, in the last day or two the flooding has got significantly worse. This video from Toowoomba shows just how quickly it can develop from a mere raging torrent into a dangerous situation where cars are thrown about like toys.
A number of people are confirmed dead, and many more are missing from places like Toowoomba.
Two-thirds of Queensland has been declared a disaster zone, and for those outside Australia trying to judge how big the problem is, the flooded areas are said to be about the size of France and Germany combined, or for our American friends, the size of Texas and Oklahoma combined.
Brisbane is now under threat, with some of the images yesterday of thousands fleeing central Brisbane reminiscent of disaster movies — proving yet again that freeways are no good for moving large numbers of people at once (but if you’ve driven in, and you can’t get back home any other way, what choice do you have?).
[Pic at right: Riverside Expressway, from Queensland government traffic camera, 1:36pm AEST Tuesday]
My uncle lives in Gordon Park, in inner-suburban Brisbane. Thankfully his suburb is not on the list of those likely to be affected by the river breaking its banks, and the excellent flood maps prepared by Brisbane City Council show that even if local flooding occurs, his street (which is on a hill above a park and a creek) should be safe. My sister rang him last night to check on him — he’s doing fine so far.
A lot of areas will not be so lucky though, and one can only offer best wishes to those caught up in the flooding.
Sheep dipping
“Ewetube” video from Boxing Day sheep dipping.
I helped out for a little while, helping to push the sheep down the chute. It might be for their own good, but they weren’t particularly keen.
Tags: farming, sheep
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Some resolutions
A bit late, but some things I plan to do this year:
Teach my kids chess
Try to declutter the house
Get Jeremy into his own bedroom
Get all of us more exercise
Write a computer game (even a simple one) to get more enthused again about programming
Replace the TV with something shiny, flat, and digital — DONE!
Have a more regular bedtime
Plan a Proper Holiday
Not let any gift vouchers expire
Have a birthday party to make up for my lack of a 40th
Tags: family, new year, resolutions
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Merry Christmas
Quieter than usual due to my boys being away in Hawaii, but I chatted with them on Skype this evening.
Presents are easier now all the adults in the family have switched to (non-anonymous) Kris Kringle… and of course we stuffed ourselves full of heaps of food. The only downer was being locked-out of my sister’s house for a little while, and I managed to get the wrong thing for my niece’s dolls house. Whoops. (Yes, I have the receipt.)
But overall, a good day. Hope the rest of you had a good one.
Lovely summer weather
Isaac and Jeremy have gone to Hawaii for Christmas with their mum and her family.
The Hawaii weather forecast appears to say that today it’s 28 degrees (C) and mostly sunny.
Given the weather today in Melbourne, I’m beginning to get quite envious.
Oh, is that thunder I hear now? Even better!
I know we’ve had a drought, but at what point can we stop saying “oh well, we need the rain” and start actively moaning about it again?
Tags: Melbourne, weather
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The power of music
(My blogging is likely to be a little sporadic for the next week or two. I’m sure you can work out why.)
Music can often be very powerful at capturing an emotion, a feeling, a memory.
After that post a couple of months ago about songs on a theme, here’s another theme that’s become relevant to me since three months ago today.
The Living Years, by Mike and the Mechanics. I sometimes hear this one in shops and so on. It’s peppy enough that for most of the song you can ignore the story of it, but if you listen closely, they’re quite moving.
Tank Park Salute, by Billy Bragg. I found this one emotional enough when I first heard it, years ago. I find the lyrics incredibly powerful. To be honest I haven’t wanted to listen to it since my dad passed on.
No doubt there are other songs on this theme out there, though I can’t think of any others I know well.
A different theme, but due to family circumstances both when I was growing up, and in my adult life, Weddings Parties Anything’s Father’s Day is also one that resonates very powerfully with me.
The things kids say
I know there’s nothing more dull than than reading someone’s blog post on amusing things their kids say. So this one’s about my nephew and niece. And it’s about stuff they used to say, and have now grown out of, but which I’ve found so amusing that sometimes I jokingly insert them into my speech in conversations with the extended family.
“Buggan” — at one early stage this was the only discernible word my nephew Leo would utter. It seemed to be an all-purpose answer to everything.
“Dingers!” — Leo has been fascinated by trains for some time (getting into the family business), and at one stage was particularly taken by railway boom gates. He reasoned that they go “ding”, therefore the trains which cause them to go “ding” must be “Dingers”.
“Go go go!” — another Leoism, one he would utter from the back seat of the car when urging his parents to take off when he saw traffic traffic lights turn green.
Finally, in an incident a few months ago, my niece Isolda was running around in undies and a top, and her mum said she looked like Lady Gaga. She must have been in one of those contradictory moods, as she immediately came back with “I’m not Lady Gaga — you’re Lady Gaga!” It’s unclear if Isolda actually understood the reference, and knows who Lady Gaga is.
I’m reminded of this every time I hear politicians arguing on the radio or television. At one stage during the wash-up after the Federal election, I was listening to Hockey and Swan… I’m paraphrasing but it was basically: “You’re fiscally incompetent!” “I’m not fiscally incompetent — you’re fiscally incompetent!”
Tags: family, Isolda, Leo
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Things I discovered when picking up my father’s ashes from the crematorium
Things I discovered when picking up my father’s ashes from the crematorium:
1. At Fawkner, you pick them up from the office, not the crematorium itself. If you catch the train there, the office is in a non-intuitive location, back towards Sydney Road.
2. Make sure you have photo ID. I guess they don’t want just anybody making off with ashes.
3. The ashes and their container are heavier than you might expect. Well at least, they were heavier than I expected.
4. The ashes are inside a plain grey plastic container, not an urn. I guess everyone’s tastes in urns is different. The container is quite well secured; I haven’t figured out how to open it yet (have no wish to, just in case anything spills out accidentally or I can’t figure out how to seal it again).
5. The container is inside a cardboard box.
6. The cardboard box, in turn, is inside a tasteful “Fawkner Memorial Park” shopping bag. Unless anybody looked closely and read the name on the bag or the sticker on the top of the box, they’d probably never guess what you had in that bag.
7. Fawkner included a list of options when they sent the letter to let me know they could be collected. It’s notable that some of the memorial options include 25 year tenure, and some (more expensive) are perpetual. From the looks of it, you can upgrade, too. We haven’t actually sorted out what will happen to the ashes yet — we’re looking at options in Queensland, where Dad grew up.
Notices
More for my own records than anything else, here are the notices that were placed in the newspapers:
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Tags: cremation, Dad, funerals
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