Day 331 - After the rain

After the rain, it seems green stuff is sprouting all over the place! Feels more like Sydney now, what with the humidity steaming up the place. I am appreciating all the lush growth, though, considering Summer will cook the place and take out large sections of the garden. I don't remember this kind of severity before with Melbourne weather.

Here's the neighbours' tree that I'm worried about. Yes, the fence neighbour. If this tree collapses into our yard or (God forbid) our house, our neighbours will not be compensating us; this I know.

Day 326 - It's all about rain

It's all about rain today - beautiful, constant, musical, WET rain. We've waited a long time for this, and we don't know how long we'll have to wait until another solid rain, so there isn't anyone complaining about it.

I took a couple of shots after church but they don't capture how saturated it looks. Inside the church, the unusual darkness made the lights stand out.

We have some extremely old icons. This one of the saints, Emperor Constantine and Empress Helen, has a wide crack running up through Empress Helen.

At home, I noticed the rain had brought out the colours of the different types of wood used to make the new fence. Pity that we'll have to get rid of the rosemary bushes but it has to be done if we want to plant something which will provide more shade.

I hope Sydney's cool change comes soon. I wouldn't like to be there today - top of 41 degrees celcius and probably humid.

Day 324 - Relief after a very hot day

Sometime during the afternoon of an extremely hot day (lucky us in the library with air conditioning), we heard the rumble of thunder and waited for the welcome sound of rain. Instead the fire siren sounded and we walked, grumbling, into large but sparse drops of rain and - finally - a coolish breeze. Three fire trucks later, pointing to the dust storm as the cause of the alert, we returned to work. Driving home, it was good to wind down the windows and feel the cool air rushing in.

After dinner, I could smell the wet greenness through the open windows, so I decided to go for a walk to check out garden casualties.

Spring growth has added size to trees.

This is the only rose on the bush; the others have already bloomed and dried out. I'm happy to see the kangaroo paws starting to flower (pictured above).

Day 269 - Rain rain

Rain, so much rain lately. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful. It's just funny that the forecast predicted sunny, warmer days for the first week of the holidays, but nothing could be further from the truth. Grand final today, and somehow the football players survived. Not that I'm vaguely interested, but Geelong won against St Kilda. I feel as if I'm on another planet; football means nothing to me, although sometimes I think - wouldn't it be good to feel the solidarity that comes from that passionate team loyalty. I've seen families base their whole Winter socialising around football. Then get depressed when the season is over ('What will we do now?') Very foreign to me. Oh well, each to his own.

Day 243 - Sun before rain

Captured this shot this morning (although it doesn't capture it at all) as the almost orange, intense sunlight lit up trees before the sky clouded over and released rain. It's such a welcoming sight considering the drought. It poured a few times for short periods over the day. I was wishing I had a water tank. Maybe I should think about getting one.

Day 93 - Rain (downpour)

What a downpour we had today. Thunder, lightning; trouble on the roads; cancelled trains and broken boom gates. When I came home the rain had almost stopped, and I let in a very wet dog. My dog, in case you're wondering. Then I took a photo of my backyard which was still smelling like rain and looking uncharacteristically green.

Day 73 - Rain

I thought these were interesting lines of cloud. This morning dark skies promised much needed rain, but so far it's been disappointing. This was more of a performance than effective outcome. But wait, I can hear a deafening sound, the comforting sound of a downpour, refreshing leaves and grass, and soaking the ground.