Upside-down

Storms and floods can make everything topsy turvy. Bizarrely, the water damage done to the library is unrelated to the flooding river. The lagoon which overflowed into the library is fed by storm water and there was a massive storm with so much water in a short space of time. The library is still closed. We have spent many days alternately sitting around waiting and getting stuck in to hard, dirty, physical labour. We had to pull carpet out from the inside of built-in shelves, under heavy furniture and inside the compactus. Then we had to scrape off the underlay that had been glued down. This evening I realised that I was supposed to submit an article to the newspaper on Tuesday. Without a desk, phone or computer I completely forgot!

Life continues as normal in many ways and I was changing sheets in Jossie's room when I noticed something different about the Barbies on her bed. I remember giving my own Barbies crew cuts when I was her age but Jossie is piercing their faces with her own earrings!

We went to Andrew's work team Christmas Party on Sunday. The kids wouldn't have gotten out of the pool if it wasn't for the food. We had Bombe Alaska, tiramisu and the children loved the rainbow jelly.

Living on a hill we are pretty safe from the flooding Murrumbidgee. Wagga has a long history of floods and finally built the Gobbagombalin Bridge in 1997 to ensure that the city wouldn't be cut off. The Gobba is 1.2km long and traverses the Murrumbidgee and a lagoon but mostly we pass over paddocks. In the last few days, however, the river and lagoon covered the whole distance bar a few spots of higher ground.

This is the actual river. The little ball of greenery in the middle in all you can see of the island.

The library wasn't the only area to be damaged. The poor art gallery had a floating timber floor that is all uneven now and this is the garage, filled with documents hanging on washing lines.

We don't have desks, computers or phones yet and we probably won't open until Friday but at least we had rhubarb cake and custard. Thanks Kristy :)