aka R’acquel

A long time since I’ve been in blog world. Our whole family has experienced great relief since we made the decision to pull Aidan out of school and take up the direction of homeschooling as the alternative for our son’s education. The weeks leading up to this decision were acutely stressful for Mitch & myself, Aidan included. The school wasn’t able to manage things well. My maternal instincts were screaming out loud within the second week of school, but i’m glad that bulk of the nausea I endured throughout it all is greatly over for now.

We opted to schedule a break for much needed rest & relaxation over at the Werriberri Lodge in the Megalong Valley, which is about a 20 minute drive from our place. According to the documentation at the lodge, Werriberri was the name of the last Aboriginal chief of a tribe that was located in this area.

This place is known as our ‘home away from home’. We even had the same cabin as last time, No.4. The Smith’s have conglomerated at this place for weddings, funerals in the past. After this adventure - for ‘everything else’ as well, so I couldn’t help but have that Weddings/Funerals & Everything movie run through my head every now at then during out stay there.

As usual with any getaway, I always have to do a toilet review first for Newtown Mums (because this kind of information is very important to them).

This toilet, was impressively sealed for our protection. From what? Boogie Monsters? I still don’t know.

A very b-grade performance on the presentation of the toilet paper, which didn’t come with a neat triangle fold and it was also going ‘under’ instead of over. I wasn’t too disappointed by this at all, because it is budget accommodation after all – but it would have been very problematic if I faced something like this in an expensive 5 star hotel.

The most unusual presentation of the mini-shampoos I’ve ever come across to date, but the bottles were very nicely branded.

I’ve always loved the design of these cabins because it’s a very efficient use of space which can accommodate 6 people with one double bed in the master bedroom,

and 4 bunk beds in the other bedroom.

It gets very cold in this area at night, Mitch turns into an axeman by the shed to help gather the firewood.

Aidan gets busy riding his bike called “Huffy” in the name of exercise amidst oodles of fresh air to get the cheeks all red & rosy. Lots of great bike-riding tracks in this area. I can’t believe it’s been a whole decade since i rode my first-ever 2-wheeled bike off the edge of a small cliff in the more daring drik-bike tracks of this area.

I get distracted by the local flower.

Aidan starts multi-tasking with Huffy by helping to carry the firewood back to the cabin.

Most of our time indoors was spent playing with the open fireplace and telling stories.

Too busy relaxing to take any photos of the delicious home-cooked meals I enjoyed making away-from-home, but that is a left-over plate of chicken schnitzel on the coffee table! For breakfast, we enjoyed grilled bacon with eggs, char-grilled cherry tomatos & home-made pancakes.

Landscape shot from the base of the Megalong Valley – there’s obviously many wonderful look-outs from the cliff tops that looks down into this area. Very fortunate to have lovely weather during our stay.

Father & son go in search for the horses, which made me think of Mrs.Lifecruiser’s childhood!

Saying hello to the local donkey. It was wonderful to see Aidan so happy & peaceful, glowing from the inside.

He was glowing even more when he finally got to ride the horse who’s name was “Hound”.

Going “solo” – it was amazing to see him so happy. He had another turn riding the horse known as “Coin” the next day. We’re hoping to make horse riding lessons as regular feature in Aidan’s life – something for him to master in an area which his parents are completely clueless.

Ah yes, the final dishwashing detergent review. A classic 1-2 star, predictably – very heavily “diluted” with water, so you need to use even more in order to clean the dishes up!

Looking forward to doing this sometime next month to “get away” again. Will be sure to go on a bush walk to check out the waterfall/creek for the next round and i’ll get more snappy with the camera when it comes to the food!

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The house got it’s first test with the pending summer that looms around the corner yesterday. Indoor temperature rose to 25C by the afternoon. The mercy of this house’s location and orientation is that there is a mountain which blocks the sun’s harshness in the afternoon.

Even though it was hot, i was mesmerised by how the sunlight completely penetrates the entire house. Boom - it is a flooding and there is something very healing about it.

Definitely the sort of sun which needs to be sheilded by the blinds, butt - you can open all the windows to let the cooler mountain air in. To my joy, the cross-ventilation in this place is possibly the best I’ve ever experienced.

The bedrooms facing on the east side are all cool, the entire east side is cool. It felt like devine intervention striking again.

No token photos but if i could take one - it would be the lichen which has formed on the dowel stick that has probably prevented the bathroom window from being opened eversince the building’s completion.

Sleep deprivation is getting quite bad again. I’m completely responsible. Average dose of seroquel should be 150-175mg. I know this, but i’ve been working hard with increasing exercise levels. My heart seeking less medication, to do without it - to manage on less, and i know cutting it back down to 50mg has been drastic.

As for why i have continued with the lower dose, it’s because i’ve been getting up at 5am in the mornings again. Early mornings like that - it’s really benefitial for me. Anywayz. Enough chitter chatter. It’s 5:09 am and the luminence is wonderful. Time for me to shut up and go for my 4.6km walk before the blazing Australian sun starts to strike.

20C this morning. It’s the warmest morning to date. Looks like it has the potential to become a ripping 30C stinker with such a warm beginning like this, but the sky is currently overcast. Perhaps it was the blanket of clouds that kept the land warm.

I need to get back to my satelite pictures but i also have a deadline for the dress. Sleep deprived on top of it all. For now, i need to shut up and go for a walk.

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I think our driveway is in breach of the Australian Design Rules. Let’s check it out!

I did a rough calculation of the gradient this morning, which i estimate is approximately 1:3.87 …and i think that converts to about 26%. Perhaps i can be more forgiving and give it a 1:4 rating, but i don’t think i can grant it a of 1:5! (20%). I have experienced driveways much steeper than this, so who’s counting?

My husband had acquired a 220kg lathe a few weeks ago, and there was no way that the initial van delivering it could back down our steep driveway with that kind of weight. The delivery-van needed to return back to Penrith in order to have the lathe loaded up onto a truck with a “crane”. There’s no way the truck could back-down our driveway without risking the scraping of it’s underside of it’s guts either. It was a very intriguing process of “when there’s a will, there’s a way” when it came to my husband’s problem solving on how to get the lathe transported into the shed. It was an amazing adventure and i’m in awe of how resourceful my husband can be when it comes to solving problems like this.

The recommended maximum driveway gradient for commercial vehicles is about 5-8%. For other vehicles it’s something like 10-15%. While many cars can handle 1:5 (20%), it is considered extreme for a short distance. Maybe the standards are a little different for this region - as the slopes are so extreme, by nature!

Our driveway was clearly built no differently to the way my parent’s driveway was addressed during the expansion & widening of the nearby road & bridge at their place. You’d think that a government-run service attending to public infrastructure would pay attention to their own legislative rules, but no - the re-construction of my parents driveway extending from a MAJOR road was done in the following fashion;

“Ok boys, we’ve got some kind of slope here, so let’s just dump the concrete onto it now!”

Forget about “measure twice & cut once” - this was the equivalent of big men playing with concrete the same way as little children build big mountains out of dirt with their toy dump-trucks.

The final gradient was so steep, that the cars could not exit the driveway without getting their guts scraped with heavy grinding from underneath.

As for the re-shaping of my parent’s driveway, Mr.Head-Engineer, did not pull out any measuring tapes nor calculator. It was again left to;

“…oops! The slope just needs to be much, much longer.”

Yes, of course - i guess leaving a decision to layman’s common-sense on just “how-much-longer” it really should’ve been is perfectly ok like that, especially when the initial time-consuming mistake wasting so many thousands of tax-payer’s money is staring so point-blank in front of your face.

I remember my class on gradient standards during interior design. People in wheelchairs don’t have the horse-power to wheel up on ramps that are too steep. It was so important to respect the design standards, that’s how i was being trained.

It wasn’t only the clearance level for the undersides of vehicles that was overlooked with the re-construction of the driveway at my parent’s place, but so too was the “line of sight” distance as well. They built a tall wall which obscured the line of sight with oncoming traffic onto a major road. It eventually had to be knocked down to a lower height as well. Time & money, guzzled up by people who can’t give a fucking shit about the math human error. It’s only human to make mistakes i suppose.

Maybe the contruction boyz acquired driveway-itus because the front-yards of soooo MANY houses were affected & eaten up by the major roadworks, which perhaps lead towards boredom & complacency with it all. One would hope that this was not the same attitude of engineering involved the expansion of the bridge that extends over a suburban railway!

The driveway at our place is much worse with regards to the line-of-sight issue.

Due to the gradient being so steep, the line-of-sight is completely obscured by the angle. You can’t see ANYTHING when you’re backing out of our driveway for a while, which is not safe. If there is an animal or a human walking across the footpath during that time, you won’t see it. As the gradient is so steep, it requires “hill-start” power with the accelerator pedal of the car as well, which makes the process of “slowly” banking out onto the road, a moderately stressful experience. It takes “muscle” to back the car out, and yet we can’t “grunt” up the hill - due to the paranoia of squashing a cat or a passing human who will naturally assume that we can see them.

This is not the only hazzard with this design, because we’re also backing out into a T-intersection as well.

Well, I guess it’s not as bad as our neighbour’s driveway next door, which is literally backing head-on into the intersection. Enough to make me realise why feng-shui concepts have often mentioned that it’s not good to have your house facing an intersection head-on like this. It’s dangerous - as you need to scan for 3 different directions of traffic at the same time.

We’re relatively fortunate, because two extensions of the t-section we back out onto are cul-de-sacs (no-through roads). The level of traffic on road & on-foot is very low. This situation would be very hazzardous if it were a very busy & major road with lots of tourists walking by.

I guess safety on the roads is hard to manage in this region. There are many road signs that signal “SLOW! Concealed Driveways!” here. The many beautiful “trees” that line the streets here are also hazzards obscuring line-of-sight. It makes me all the more appreciative that winter enables more safety due to the desidous non-native trees that are planted everywhere - i can at least see-through the branches now! *lol*

This area we live in is simply a “quiet spot”, framed & blocked by the Blue Mountains National park. Houses block the ends of the cul-de-sacs, so there is not much possibility for road-expansions in the distant future.

I guess design like this has an inhibiting kind of quality. It traps & prevents future extensions & housing development. You can’t build anymore houses here, unless they get demolished and turned into high-density appartments. The low-density nature of this area probably also makes things a little more neighbourly. We have no motivation to zoom-out of our driveways. I guess it makes everyone that little bit extra-cautious when backing out of their driveways over here as well.

In the meanwhile, i urge all women wearing stilettos to exercise great caution if they ever try to walk down our humble driveway. ;D

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This has been my energiser for the day. The sun, bursting through the windows on the NE face. My sore eyes & body craving to be blinded by light and the warmth it brings into the room. Free heating by nature. Why did humans keep building silly houses that didn’t maximise on natural sunlight to keep houses toasty in winter and cooler in summer more efficiently for so long?!

I enjoyed how the extra sunlight made me see the colours of my son’s eyes so deeply.

Peace at home, peace in the world…

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Hoo man, i’m gonna put my hand up for living in one of the most polluted streets in Sydney for years before my pregnancy, and then moving into a brand new appartment next door to that street after the bun started to cook in the oven.

Like, fresh beige carpet fumes! Super fresh - oh yeah baby, i could feel the vapours excreting from it. Could feel & smell the vapour - hovering a good 50cm from the ground at least, but you could still smell it whilst standing up… just so much stronger when you lied down on the bed …which wasn’t sitting up higher on it’s frame because we had just moved in and had so many weeks of lying down so low and right up next to it before we got the house sorted out.

I was freshly pregnant too! Found out on the first week of moving in! How nice!

That smell certainly didn’t help with the nausea, but i wasn’t too thrilled about the neighbour’s indian cooking permeating into the master bedroom through the ceiling ducts with all those pretty little “spotlights” either.

17 weeks into my pregnancy, my first major attack of Multiple Sclerosis gives me the most fucked up experience of supreme acute pain in my life, taking a good 3 years to recover sensation from the neck down. Lost function of my hands during the process and am ever so grateful that they’re still here with me & functional to knock wood with now, let alone type & feed myself!

The smell of mould in the neurological ward of the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital that had no windows you could open and that fucking carpet - it was WET, totally soaked and smelt like urine crossed with mouldy penecillin. That wasn’t helping with the nausea either.

Do you realise how unpleasant it is to walk on mouldy-wet-urine-soaked carpet with a pair of socks? It wasn’t that much fun bare foot even! It’s fucking disgusting.

I remember asking my husband;

“Darling, can you please bring my can of Impulse?!”

Spritzing the air with nice-smelling deoderant to try and counter that stench didn’t help and i was at the absolute worst moment of my life. I was supposed to be grateful for the room, because at least i had a room to myself. Frankly, i think being in the company of other neurologically challenged patients in conditions monumentally worse than mine might’ve been a lot more comforting in helping me deal with the pain i had to live with myself. Atleast my other vitals like normal brain function and ability to communicate with my family wasn’t compromised as it was for others!

The pain i endured, that fucking pain i just had to live with and not be able to take anything for it because i was pregnant. This was further amplified by doctors not believing me too, thinking it was just a figment of my imagination, just “in my head”. Well they certainly did get that very fucking wrong. It wasn’t all in my head at all, it was in my fucking spine. I’ve eversince been so annoyed to see TV medical shows make commentary that MS just happens in the bloody brain, coz that was the same attitude of so many of the RPAH registrars.

“Results showed no lesions in the brain. It’s not MS”

Hello - don’t forget the spine. You know, the tail of the brain you fucking quacks! Forgive me, i’m angry. I was treated very poorly by some of the hospital staff in there and i still need time to vent that other branch right out of my life in detail.

One profusely traumatic childbirthing experience later, i end up with the next worst horror to contend with - an unconsolable child, refused to latch, unable to breastfeed, unable to bond and hoo, that severe PND which followed sure wasn’t fun, but it obviously made me so much stronger as i’m not dead yet. 5.5years later, my son’s diagnosed with autism. How nice!

My MS has been in long remission. Started to get better in my last year of living in toxicville and since my move out of there into the mountains last year, it’s been so non-existent in my life that it feels like it’s completely gone now, but maybe i’m just being cavalier. I haven’t had a relapse or flare-up for such a long time. Maybe i’m just lucky, for now - so let’s knock some more wood.

Anywayz, i’m putting my hand up by listing pollution, the toxic shit & the carpet fumes in particular, as one “probable cause” on that same story which constantly says “genetic susceptability & some environmental trigger” whenever you look up “what causes autism” or “what causes multiple sclerosis” and all the other auto-immune diseases in this world that share that exact same bloody fucking story.

I’m happy to let the researchers and scientists work on the molecular level of testing really tiny microscopic things in tests tubes, while i’ve gotten awfully curious as to the social side of the research. Aren’t the people who “catch” the dieseases the best experts on themselves? Aren’t they the ones with the stories of what sorts of events transpired during the time that illness struck? Hey, i might as well start my adventure in this search today.

So - why didn’t my brand new appartment come with a warning sign like on those cigarette packets that say “Smoking can harm your baby”? Known to be bad for pregnant women to be exposed to and yet the whole world said;

“It’s perfectly ok to keep on building houses like this when we know that those carpet fumes are TOXIC! It’s a well known phenomena folks!”

*snorts* How nice!

I don’t forget the commentary of the builders working on the finishing touches of the Presidio Appartments in Newtown - yes, they’ve had colleagues & friends experience “new-building syndrome”.

Jesus. I almost felt inspired to design fasionable gas-mask maternity wear for pregnant women after what i’ve read in The Natural Medicine Guide To Autism, by Stephanie Marohn just a minute ago.

Looking forward to the day THE CAUSE becomes as concrete & supposedly fucking “definite” as my diagnosis of MS!

So - what happened when some kind of auto-immune diesease or autism began to enter in your life? What do YOU think is the cause in your life at the moment? What were the events that occured which lead up to the “attack” or diagnosis? What are you doing now to help your life feel better, either mentally or physically or everything?

Bah. Just feeling rather venty at the moment so i’m just gonna let it all hang out loose like this in a scream and then get back into my usual journey of laughing at life.

If you haven’t been on Newtown Mums - you’ve got no idea of how much i used to bitch about that fucking beige carpet …because it was so hard to keep clean …even moreso with a toddler learning how to toilet train.

Like, we paid $420/wk to live in that appartment and I’m so glad we moved right out of that fucking place!

Enjoying the fresh air over here - while it lasts, that is…

Though my life with my son hasn’t been easy, we have been fortunate to be incredibly blessed by it in other ways. He’s gifted & bright, has an incredible sense of humour and i treasure the fact that we can enjoy experiencing proper face-to-face hugs together now. To experience affection with your child, in a hug. The upside of not being able to have so much of that at the begining like other mothers have had - it makes me all the more grateful & appreciative of the moments that i can have that closeness with my son now, and never take it for granted. It always means the world to me.

Onward & upward with the journey of learning how to DETOX.

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I’ve never been a great fan of bad smelling houses. I can’t tolerate living in places that wreak of mould. We’ve seen quite a number of properties with serious waterproofing & ventilation problems here and quite a few real estate agents seem to turn a blind eye to it.

In one place, all the curtains on the windows had mould. The indoor air smelt terrible. Real estate agent’s response:

Oh, that’s only because the house hasn’t had a good airing for a long time. You just need to open the windows to clear it out.

Yeah right. Cuh! If only i could convey just how bad things were smelling in the underhouse storage area of that house! :O When mould starts beginning to form on curtains - the house has a problem with adequate ventilation & waterproofing. If I see moss or other moisture growing near the corners of the bottom of the house, I know that the house i’m living in will be prone to rising damp. My experience of living in this house, has taught me how important it is for things to be well waterproofed from the top too.

The floor tiles in the bathrooms & laundry here have been a major source of stress. This was the problem we were facing when we first moved in - a photo of the ensuite’s shower recess…

The tiles for the ensuite & laundry were all loose with a hollow tap. If we walked with bare feet, the tiles would lift off the floor. If your tiles are like this - you’re going to face a bad waterproofing problem - which will not only damage & loosen the tiles further, but will cause problems with mould that will damage the house further.

This is the patch up job that was done to waterproof the shower recess in the ensuite with the rather artistic application of silica gel around the corners.

With the tiles being in such bad condition, water was getting underneath them and creating mould underneath the silica gel. No amount of domestos could remove or bleach the mould living inside the silica gel. With water getting underneath the tiles, this is what was happening to the room adjacent to the shower.

Maybe some people can comfortably live with that but it would be a red flag for me if i owned this house. We put in a request for repairs to the real estate agent. It took 3.5months before something was done about it.

There were two tilers that came in to review the tiles. One was happy to go ahead with the bandaid solution, quoting about $2000AUD for the job. Another tiler refused to accept the job because in his opinion, everything needed to be ripped out and done all over again properly, otherwise the house would continue to experience the same problem, quoting $6-8000AUD for the job.

Naturally, the landlord opted for the cheaper “patch up” job and while the tiler did a great job, here’s an account of what’s happened since. The entire floor of the laundry was ripped out and resurfaced with new tiles, but whenever it rains, we now get puddles of water entering into the room! The section near the door is always very wet. Take a look at what having that much water lurking on the floors like this is doing to the wall now!

Pretty bad huh? This corner of the laundry had a very small amount of mould building up in this corner before. Since the installation of the new tiles - the problem has grown monumentally worse. The wall, door frame & the bottom of the door are beginning to rot & decay at an alarming rate now.

The door is unable to open properly all the way too. The level of the new tiling to blame at first, however if the door continues to get water logged & begins to expand even further - i’m quite sure it’ll be even harder to open the door.

Extending the floor tiling like this to the outside was not a good idea. As the floor must have a “dip” to allow excess water to run into the drain hole, you can’t defy the laws of gravity - so this is why water has begun to enter into the laundry from the outside when it rains.

This is an external shot of the laundry’s exit showing the roof line, which i think it the real source of the problem. Not much awning space there to shelter the rain from hitting the side of the house.

Another external shot of the house further down this side of the house. The guest bathroom where the window is. There’s even less roof awning here and it doesn’t have any gutter either!

The house is about 15yo. At first I thought the reason for why the tiles were getting loose was due to settlement issues with the foundations shifting. I’m now convinced that the real cause is due to inadequate waterproofing from the roof & sides of the house. With the rain hitting the side of the house, water is getting logged into the red cedar walls and making it’s way underneath the tiles and other parts of the house, which is causing other non-waterproof materials & structures living underneath & inside the house to expand. The outside of the house is probably well overdue for another paint job to treat the wood. I wonder just how overdue too, because the garden was clearly neglected for at least 8 years before we moved in.

The following is a shot of our walk-in wardrobe. It had a serious moulding problem here before we moved in. I’ve cleaned it up since, so it doesn’t look as bad as it used to.

The source of the problem was the roof. A piece of metal flashing was installed into the corner of where the roof meets the wall.

The workroom space in this corner downstairs was also smelling a little mouldy. While the flashing has helped the problem considerably - I can also see how it’s still a temporary solution as you can see how the water is getting logged into the red cedar around the edges of the metal roofing in the picture above.

A shot from the back of the house. The window on the left, is my son’s bedroom. The window on the right is the ensuite adjecent to it. Again - not much awning form the roof nor any guttering to protect the sides of the house from rain, with some parts of the red cedar getting water logged.

There’s also another problem with the branches of the pine tree next to the corner of the house overhanging on top of the roof too. It’s allowing too many pine leaves to sit on top of the metal roof, which i’ve been told an lead to corrosion due to the amount of acidity in the leaves. The branches grate against the roof during windy weather too. Another reason for why it’s not good to have pine trees tower on top of your roof here? It’s because the cockatoos are going to spit the pine cones onto your roof and wake you up with loud bangings at 5am in the morning. *lol*

An here’s what things are like on the inside of that window. There’s mould beginning to form on the curtain.

I’m a strong advocate for the use of exhaust systems to suck up the excess moisture & steam during showers out of rooms as they’re very effective at preventing the formation of mould, but it’s obvious that the exhaust system for the ensuite is not working properly at all.

The regular light in the ensuite has been broken since the first day of moving in. Never trust real estate agents who promise that things will get fixed when it’s spoken through their mouths. It never gets done, so it always makes me laugh when they try to be & sound so bloody sincere during the periodic inspections. *lol*

The problem I’ve found with exhaust systems pumping out air towards the roof of the house, is that they have a tendancy to bring far too much dust back inside. I don’t know of any sytems that pump moisture “out” of the house through the side of the wall, but i would definitely consider investigating it further in the event of building my own home.

With the master bedroom adjacent to the ensuite being lined with carpet - this room will eventually begin to smell very mouldy if the exhaust system is not fixed soon. Let’s now take a journey to the front of the house and check out what the awning of the roof is looking like over here…

You can see how the water is getting logged into the wooden decking and how it travels towards the side of the house where there’s a water shoot extending down from the gutter. It was a very poor building & construction technique to allow the decking to penetrate into the side of the house like this. The water logging has caused this side of the house to expand, pushing & warping the wooden window frames too.

A shot of the roofline on the front verandah, where again - there’s not much awning to protect the house from getting hit by rain on the sides.

As for the bandaid solution on how to fix this problem?

…yeah, let’s just shove some more silica gel in to fill up the cracks! *lol* Oh well - at least it helped to prevent some of the cold drafts coming into the house last winter. =P

The guest bathroom tiles are currently in a very shocking state, where they’re all becoming very loose and experiencing the same problem of lifting off the surface when you walk on them with bare feet. The rate of damage has been increasing rapidly. The more water that gets onto the tiles and falls in between the grouting after a bath in this room, the worse the problem gets. As the former landlord has sold the house, it’s obvious that our request for repairs has been totally ignored, so we’ve just had to live with this shit.

I look forward to moving out of this house next week, because those tiles have been shitting me just as bad as biege coloured carpet in the former rental appartment we were living in the inner-west suburb of Sydney known as Newtown. {*gah!*}

The real estate sales pitch on the house when it was put up for sale, had words along the lines of,

“Recently renovated!”

- which has highlighted to me why it’s really important to investigate and find out what the reasons for the specific renovations have been, along with a details of the actual work that was carried out, before you buy a house. It could very well be a patch-up job covering up a much bigger problem.

It’s been a really interesting experience for me to watch & learn from. This house has thankfully not smelt too moudly since we moved in, but i can see how the problem is going to get worse if people don’t pay attention to the current problems it faces and have them resolved soon.

Here we’ve had the tiler’s focusing all of their attention onto the floors, when the real source of the problem has probably been the bloody roof. For now - i’m grateful that i don’t own this house, because the amount of money required for repairs & maintenance to keep it in good shape is literally going to be….

…through the friggin’ roof!

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Storms have continued to brew in the last week. We experienced another orange hued evening on 1st March 07. Makes me curious as to why it’s orange and if it might be connected to what makes the Blue Mountains next door to be “blue”. Maybe it’s local to the sorts of dust particles being sucked up by the turbulence.

We were right in the heart of an amazing fireworks display of non-stop lightning & thunder last night. Intriguing how the luminence is almost like daylight when lightning strikes. Shame i couldn’t catch any good shots and i’m half doh’ing myself for not pulling out the video camera instead. The smell of the rain outside was so fresh & devine. Despite the cooling rain, it was incredibly hot & muggy indoors.

The house we’re living in has not been kind to our electrical appliances, although nothing has tragically fried yet. We’ve experienced far too many brown-outs this last year, with the occasional blackout - which i’m not too pleased with. We’re with Integral Energy for electricity. I got a surge protector for my computers in this room upon their advice, but i’m not impressed with it. I really need some kind of device that can act as a minature power-back-up/battery kind of thing so it can cope with the sudden on/off with electricity and not disrupt the computers.

Storms always make us nervous and it’s the first place we’ve ever had to exercise great caution with the unplugging of appliances during storms as our modem got fried last year. This house is about 14 years old. Not as old as a former friend’s place in Newtown where all of her appliances fried. It’s a terrible thing that can happen, so it’s now become something I need to keep in mind with househunting or design.

This area has seen a lot more rain in comparison to last year without any question. A big difference in the amount of green living in my front yard. This photo was taken almost a year ago in April 2006.

…and this is what things look like today.

It’s likely to be a wetter than usual year

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