Flood Update!

You'll be pleased to know that Didi's house is fine despite the rest of her neighbourhood going under.  Yup, just like Loredana. But whereas Loredana feels guilty about coming through intact, Didi says she feels blessed !!

Didi's right, Loredana honey,  FEEL BLESSED!

Michael and Paula are fine too, although Michael's farm down the coast apparently got a severe bashing! Haven't yet heard how bad.

And the big big news is that Margaret got back from Berlin yesterday only to discover her house in Toowoomba ... is just dandy!  Well above the waterline, she has no problems whatsoever.  Am very pleased because I was visualising a very nasty homecoming, a la what happened to Joanne many years ago!

What happened there was our friend Joanne returned to Townsville after seven months in Africa - and had been telling us all she was so looking forward to coming home because Africa stunk beyond anything she could ever have imagined. However, we'd had the Cyclone Justin series of flood in her absence, so when she walked in her front door ... she immediately walked out again ... because it smelled worse than anything she'd ever encountered in Africa; anything she'd ever encountered in her life; anything she'd thought it possible to encounter.  What happened was that she'd gone under several times, and everything had dried out in a locked house, and then got inundated again and then ... well, to cut a long story short, everything she owned was fetid, dank, mushy, covered in mushrooms, mould and simply rotted away in the most putrid way imaginable.  She had to toss out every single thing she owned and start again ... in a new house!

And speaking of mushrooms growing in houses, that's exactly what happened to Julia's neighbour's house in Innisfail many years ago.  Julia's elderly neighbour had a heart attack while doing the dishes, so her elderly husband, in a panic, drove her straight to the emergency room ... and never returned home himself ... so the tap in the kitchen just ran and ran and ran ... and over the years that followed we watched the very nice wooden house next door get consumed by mushrooms!  Seriously!  It was like Attack of the Killer Fungi over there, with these mushrooms over every inch of the place. And the smell!  Oh boy, that SMELL!! Tried many times to get authorities to take an interest - if only on the grounds of conserving water - but no one cared. Julia moved out so I've no idea how that ended up, although I imagine it would have been a demolition-job for definite!

But back to the present!  That's the round-up of everyone we know in this disaster.  Everyone is fine and well and escaped anything bad.

And Keith laughed at me for lighting that candle in front of Kwan Yin for them!