Not Tears

It never rains, they say, but it pours.   

It's been pouring everywhere but round here of late, and even last night with hundreds of millimetres of rain in surrounding towns, we barely made four for the day, which was quite fortuitous really given that Scott and Lucy's wedding was a mostly outdoors event last night.

After a big night, there's something quite pleasant about waking late to a bright, overcast drizzle.  

Actually given our currently distorted state of mind there would be something quite pleasant about just waking up late!

Surely that hurts

If I had a lump in my throat like that during every meal I'm not sure I'd enjoy food quite so much.

The Eastern Reef Egret comes in white or grey apparently, and this bloke who is is clearly not grey stakes out the other side of the river late every afternoon, hunting among the mangroves.   We've seen him once or perhaps twice over this side very briefly, but it seems he likes his privacy and he's a very cautious character.

Actually come to think of it we see him a lot more than we see the neighbours to our east.  I wonder if they come in white or grey as well.  They certainly seem to take flight when they become aware of our presence!

Skywatch

The Skywatch title is for the benefit of all who are visiting for the first time, and who would otherwise have been visiting my Sunshine Coast Daily Photo blog.  Today actually is Friday, but in what must really be some sort of addled state of mind, my blazing sunset on the Sunshine Coast photo is going to happen tomorrow, a mere day late!

Not to worry.

Now there's a great expression, and it's easier said than done.  

We've been quite relaxed since Monday we think, in a relative sort of way.  We won't know the outcome of the valuation business till mid next week, yet each day we've been awake before dawn as if that will change something in the outcome.   It's not solistalgia, it's not excitement, we have no idea what this strange emotion is that causes us to wake in time to watch the sunrise, but it does.   Surely we'll get over it once we know.   Surely.

Michael is going to take one of the ducks out today, I think I'll take the other, but we'll wait till those clouds turn white.

Diversity

So far, finding a photo per day around the house hasn't been hard at all.  I'm not sure that I considered just how hard this project could become before I started, but once again I find myself seeing things that need recording, because we may well forget they were a part of our daily routine a few years from now.

The flathead are in a bit early I think, although this is just one stray.  Like the soldier crabs, they come at first in schools, leaving tiny imprints on the the sand, and as they grow become less numerous.  Eventually the bigger fish arrive (this one is probably around 400mm long) presumably to breed and be eaten.

At low tide the sand tells an astonishing story about what lives below the surface of the water, and what has been wading in the shallows in search of a feed.

Recession

We can see Newport again today, and it's not even sunset, which tends to make us think that a tree or two has fallen during the storms of late.   That's one less thing to bulldoze I suppose, like the big mangrove that used to be on the point.

I really should have started one of those photo a month things from the time we arrived.   The island is probably five metres shorter at its south-eastern end now, the monster mangrove died not long after we got here, then a few years ago it blew over in a storm, and it lay there with its roots in the air for years.

In December, the monster tide picked it up and carried it away, leaving just some sand, and a big mark where it had been.  I've taken to wondering of late, what will happen to the waterfront once the road goes through.  Will they take out all the revetment walls and just let our side of the river wander as is its want?

Newport

We have always lived two kilometres from Mooloolaba as the crow flies, yet some days the crow's journey seems easier than others.  For reasons which we are unable to explain, if the light is exactly right and at no other time, we can see the top of the one sixteen storey building built.   We need overcast but clear conditions and a setting sun, and there it is where it has always been.  After appearing so mysteriously, like many of the birds that live on the other side of the river it disappears again for days or even weeks at a time, before peering over the mangroves to see if we are OK.

It reminds me of a Frank Zappa song.

Today it seemed to want reassurance that our valuers had been, that the removal people were preparing their quote and that we had remembered our anniversary.

Well two out of three ain't bad.

Which reminds me of a Meatloaf song come to think of it.

Bee Careful

We had rain last night, the first for the year.  As rain comes round here it wasn't a large amount, 25 mm or so, but with driving wind and in short, sharp ferocious squalls.   

It hadn't occurred to me that it's been so long since it's rained that none of the bees would have seen it before, and while there doesn't appear to be too much activity round the hive, there are plenty of signs that the colony has been decimated by the size of the rain drops.

About now I'm hoping we're over the "rich and powerful metaphor" period of our lives!