h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Good grief, Ivan!

I'm really glad that woman was saved.

Good that you were able to go to the concert, wet as you were.

Sorry about the garden mess. Is it likely to get dry and hot again soon?

No problem at all. The language I was tempted to use might have violated house rules.

Excuse me while I step out for cappacino, corned beef and cabbage & sourdough bread.

As the Inuit say, "Food is sleep"...

...especially with a lot of coffee.

Bel, we're expecting a couple of dry-ish days and then more rain for another week. Summer is expected to be generally wetter than usual, and probably a little cooler, which suits me.

I have three days in the office, then a week off which I'll spend in Sydney. If the garden gets smashed again, it will have to wait until I come home for another clean-up.

err you can have Rolf Harris back on loan, singing "in the wet"

I hope the situation will normalise soon.

ITIWBS, we have a smiley, too...

Must be really bizarre to sit in a concert like that with your clothes steaming and think about floods!

According to our ITN news coverage, there is more rain expected in New South Wales!

I hope you've managed to catch up on your sleep, Ivan

Malabrista, I found the smiley on my next tour through the smiley index.

Its good that the devastating drought in Australia is ending, unfortunate that the end comes with flooding and the resulting accidents and damage as it so frequently does.

My own location in So. CA has a climate* very similar to that of southeast Australia,from firestorm to monsoonal floods, so I've been through a bit of that.

*We've even got enough (imported) eucalyptus forest that we could support a small koala population.

Plenty of eucalyptus here, too, totally different climate. I prefer it less extreme!

Is the water draining ok at least, or is everything too baked for that?

We'd had a decent amount of rain over the last couple of months, most of which had soaked into the earth and topped up the water table. The last downpour couldn't soak in because the ground's now saturated, so it's filled the dams and the rivers and has moved on to filling the streets of country towns instead.

We're expecting more rain on Wednesday - up to four inches, according to some forecasters. If we're lucky the first floodwaters will move downstream before the second instalment comes.

Four inches of rain all at once sounds downright scary. I've seen entire communities buried as much as 4 feet deep in conditions like that.

According to the TV footage, 4 foot is about the right depth at the moment

The Murrumbidgee peaked at Wagga at 9.7 metres above normal level. Fortunately the city centre is protected by a 10 metre levee. Let's see what happens later in the week. It was with some trepidation that I planted out a few shrubs this evening, but it's better to have them at risk of drowning in the ground than at risk of becoming rootbound in pots.

You might even have a jungle by the time you get back from your break!

As long as it's alive, that's fine by me.

You might even have your very own rainforest in your back yard

Ideally without cassowaries. They scare me.

Lord! They look pre-historic!

Sort of a cross between an emu and a turkey

Yes, that's about right, but with the aggression of Genghis Khan.