What next? Fire? Famine?

First, there was this:




A tropical storm with golf-ball sized hailstones swept through Lismore in early October 2007. We were just about to leave the local shopping centre after doing groceries when it roared in like a train. That is the road the boys are looking at, 5 minutes after the storm hit.





Have a look at those rear windscreens...they're gone!
Driving through town afterwards was startling - everywhere, cars sported smashed front and rear windscreens and massive hail "dimpling", the streets were littered with leaves shredded from the trees by the force of the hailstones, houses had whole walls full of smashed windows and local landmarks like the old Post Office clock were badly damaged. Lismore was declared a natural disaster area, and millions of dollars of insurance claims were made.

Then, at the end of October, came this (as regular readers will remember, see here and here for story and more pictures):



(Image by Tim Hollis. I don't have an external shot, 'cos we were under it!)



Once again, our village as well as the Lismore region was declared a natural disaster zone (another hailstorm ripped through the whole area after our tornado), and we marvelled at Nature's power and destructive force.


And this morning, I wake to the first glimpse of sunshine since Christmas Day as this area has been subjected to days of torrential rain and gale-force winds (leaks in the house still not fixed since that tornado were sorely tested, and I have buckets and bowls in all sorts of unlikely places, and the four-poster bed in the middle of the room away from the worst of it), to see this:


(Image from ABC TV)

The Big Feller and the wee man are out looking at the extent of the flooding right now, but I grew up round here so have a pretty good idea what it's like out there. I hope the Big Feller might manage to take a half-decent photo so I can share it with you...his photograpic skills (cough, cough) are a little lacking.

Once again, Lismore is going to be declared a natural disaster zone. Even though the rain has eased at the moment, there is still so much water coming down from the mountains that source the local rivers...right where we used to live, actually.

So you can see why I am wondering what else the universe has in store for us at the moment? I don't want anything else to happen, and superstitiously wondered about the wisdom of choosing that post title.

Maybe the storm will be an internal one. Things are NOT good with me and the Big Feller. There are changes coming which may rip through our emotional landscapes with a force of a tornado.

Slightly bonkers...

Intellectually, I understand why it is that little children develop an almost pathological need to interrupt or disturb their parents when they are talking on the phone (or talking to a friend or a tradesman or any other activity that does not involve full and total attention to said child and child's needs/wishes/wants).

But it still drives me bloody bonkers!

Probably more so at the moment, when the Big Feller has been away all week and the wee man is both a) more fragile, because he is missing his Daddy and b) more annoying because we have been with each other almost constantly apart from the 6 hours he was at preschool on Monday, and I have been fragile this week, and he has known it, and responded by being even more emotionally needy and....

Do we see a pattern here? *Laughs*

The wee man can be happily involved in a game in another room - he has even been deep in play in the sandpit at the end of the garden - and I finally reach for the phone to make an important call I've been putting off and wham! there he is, calling, shouting, riding past me making siren noises at top volume, anything to render it impossible to focus on my caller and guarantee I turn it on to him. I've spoken about this phone/attention conflict with many parents, and it seem it's not just my pet peeve.

Of course, each occasion is an opportunity to talk about proper behaviour and respecting other people etc etc, and I know he is beginning to get this concept, and he will eventually learn to wait his turn (probably about the time he starts taking the phone to his room and making me wait all night for it...lol!?!)- but.it.still.drives.me.bloody.batshit. Grrr.

Oh dear, petty, petty, petty!...sorry, folks, blogging standard has fallen tonight. Mama is tired, needs a nice long aromatic footbath, and a piece of really fine dark Swiss chocolate...

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On a more positive note:- Last Tuesday, teachers, parents and children from our preschool enjoyed a visit to the village primary school to present them with the cheque for $300 we raised with our movie night fundraiser a fortnight ago. The money is aimed to help the school replace valuable resources lost when the tornado tore apart several of their buildings. Government funding and insurance will of course replace the buildings and some of the more obvious infrastructure, but there are so many books and materials and teaching aids to be replaced.

Anyway, we took our kids on a crocodile walk down the street, and joined the bigger kids at their assembly. We adults all spoke some fine words and passed over the cheque, but the kids just had a ball in each other's company - the year 5 students ended up "buddying" up with our little guys and taking them for a walk down the back through the construction site that used to be their playground.

One of the things I said in my little speech was about how this fundraiser, which was based within the village, supported by and about villagers was a great example of "the power of community" (which was the name and the theme of the documentary movie we screened) in action. It did give me a real buzz to notice how profoundly the school kids had absorbed that message, and a nice sense of the possibilities of the future if such a sense could be modelled by adults and absorbed by children everywhere.

Yes it was a Tornado. 29 Oct 2007. ABC North Coast NSW. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Yes it was a Tornado. 29 Oct 2007. ABC North Coast NSW. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

After the tornado...

...I think I'll let the images do the talking for me today.

Blown Away

...Or not quite, in our case.

This morning, as we wandered up and down our village and wondered at the varying degrees of destruction and damage, it dawned on me how incredible lucky we had all been.


Looking at the double-brick church, three of its four sides punched out as if by a giant fist, or the pancake-flat school building, or the roofing tin wrapped around tree trunks like contemporary sculpture, I had to marvel that no-one was injured or killed.

Yesterday afternoon at 4pm, as kids still ambled down the street from school, and parents waited in cars for the buses that usually arrived with the students who travelled to town for school, a mini-tornado tore through our village, Dunoon.

One minute, we were eyeing off an approaching thunderstorm. Another, and I began to sense something was wrong, shutting doors and windows frantically while taking the wee man and the pooch into the living room at the core of the house...and putting the wee feller under the (very sturdy) coffee table. Before I even had time to wonder at this instinct, the roaring fury of the storm took all thought. I looked towards the french doors that led onto the verandah, as almost gently the trees outside fell towards us, blocking much of the light and force. The rain was being driven under the doors, straight across the floor.

I realised our bedroom windows were still open, and struggled into the room to close them. The rain and wind were driving sideways through the room, soaking the bed in the minute or so the storm had been over us. The door latch stuck when I tried to go back out, and for a fraught moment I thought I might be trapped in the room - luckily another desperate tug, and I was back out to my boys who were bravely cuddling together and happy to have me back.


Minutes later, the worst was over, and we began to peek out. It was astounding how much damage was done in that short time, and how little of it we had heard or expected - the storm was just one great roar, and the thuds and thunder you'd expect with trees uprooted and flung were lost in its immensity.

We've had 24 hours of living in our own little Ground Zero. Emergency services, SES, and volunteers worked till about 10.30 last night clearing the roads, the downed lines, and the most dangerous of the debris. First thing this morning, we emerged to look at the new face of our world, reworked by nature.

(I would write more, but am more than a little tired...wonder why?!? Spent the day taking these photos and waiting for the electricity to come back so I could get on here and blog it...!)