Gales of laughter and a real gale

from w
This morning the sky was a peuce colour, like I'd seen it the day of a bushfire - yellowy brown and the wind was coming up as I went up to the church hall for a morning coffee with a group of about fifty women. Our guest speaker, Enid Baker, had us in gales of laughter with her stories and extended jokes, some oldies nearly falling of their seats. Laughter is a great medicine. Coffee and cakes were excellent too as the wind bashed against the windows and walls outside.

After some computer stuff I had to do in the church office, I caught a bus and it was gale-force by then and as I waited for a bus I did a kind of Marilyn Monroe pose. At the ATM my money almost flew into the traffic but I grabbed it in time and paid the car insurance. The trees and the traffic light signs were really shaking.

On the bus home I noticed trees down and some fences in tatters, and when acouple of us got off the bus, sand and grit whipped us in the face. Then, what a shamozzle I found our back yard to be. The dead branches from the date palm were scattered about, the pots and pot plants all over the yard, a small tree was down on the ground, two unattached doors were wrecked with glass shattered. And yesterday Peceli had been so proud of a neat, tidied up compound! They say the winds were up to 150 k an hour at times so it was almost like a hurricane.

After a second storm - this old house

from w
A week or so ago I posted a sketch of a house four doors down which suffered during a storm. Another storm this week sent the old ti-tree tumbling - as well as a tall tree in their back yard which tipped a neighbour's house. The chainsaw man was in full swing yesterday. I was surprised by the reddish colour of the cut wood. I hope it will be used for carving rather than firewood.

(later)
I talked to the owners this morning because they were having a garage sale at the little old house. They told me it was about 150 years old, the earliest cottage in the area and they plan to do it up. It will look really sweet then. I did buy something too - for $3 a neat T-shirt with lots of bling kind of jewelry on it, so I'll wear it to the Mood Support Group book launch tomorrow afternoon.


w.

House after the gale

from w
A few days ago we had a huge gale that took down a few trees, brick walls, rooftops in Geelong. It's sunny today and my flu is better so I went out to go shopping and noticed my neighbour's house - four doors down - had a problem with the corrugated iron roof, all coming apart. So later on, I did a pencil sketch, added biro and here it is. This is a modest cottage, boom style, maybe over hundred years old, where a Hungarian elderly couple used to live with their three Vizla dogs. Now young guys live there and I guess storm damage insurance will give them a new verandah roof shortly.