I am keen to start writing about my writing, as it were, but am compelled to continue with the weather topic. Queensland is, after all, experiencing some of the worst flooding in decades and many areas have already been declared disaster zones. The Mary River has been slowly rising over the last week, giving people time to clear out their businesses and homes, so there was none of the urgency experienced by other areas of Queensland. Gympie tends to have more polite, well mannered floods, if there is such a thing.
This will be the fifth night Southside has been cut off from Gympie, and the rest of the world. Even if we could get across the river, the highway is blocked. Life this side of the bridge has taken on a ‘time stands still’ feel. Apart from a dwindling supply of milk and bread and mould covering everything that isn’t moving (the fridge, walls, leather shoes, dogs), things are ok over this side of the river. We, like many other Southside residents, have been down to check out the rising river. Apart from that, time has been spent eating (though carefully, knowing there are limited supplies at the local shops) reading and checking the flood heights on the internet.
Today we even lost the internet, so things got simpler. Who’d have thought we could get such enjoyment from playing ‘What scat is that?’ True, it started out mundanely (having two dogs living in the back yard makes the game fairly predictable), but on closer inspection we found all manner of animal poop; gecko, possum, rat, frog, lizard. Definitive identification was hard to get, on account of our inability to google, but on a positive note, at least no one was disappointed when they were proved wrong.
Tiggy's Tales 