We are having the most extreme wet weather in quite a while, perhaps half a decade. Living on the down-side of a steep hill means that water higher up uses all premises below as a kind of river. That is what my place looks like. It is flooded and rivulets are flowing on all sides, making their way to the road. My garage is inundated though the house is intact, for now.

Looking out the back window this morning, I noticed a large banksia had come down in the night. It fell most considerately, for, while it took out a neighbouring apple, it missed the fence and only just scrapped the garage. That tree has been with me since I moved here almost thirty years ago and I know, from the old tyre at the base, that it started from a seedling or a sapling. So I am rather sad and not at all looking forward to chopping it up.

It's strange indeed that it was but a mere two weeks ago that heat, fire and smoke were our main worries and that the news was full of grim reportage of a blackened landscape. Now, rain is coming at the windows sideways and the magpies looked soaked through and miserable.

This is usually a cue to quote Dorothea Mackellar, but I'll resist, just this once.