Rain...finally!

(This picture was actually take on our January diving holiday in Merimbula NSW-No Diving)

I woke up this morning to the sound of rain pattering on the roof. It may have been the intensity of the rain that woke me or just the sheer surprise to hear such an uncanny sound making it’s way through to my sleepy subconscious. In fact it’s been so long since I heard such a steady drumming I’d be no more surprised if I heard Santa’s bells and the trotting of reindeer on the roof.

You see Melbourne, as well as the rest of Australia, is in the middle of a serious drought. It has been pretty much the whole time I’ve lived here, which is just about 5 years now. Here in the city, we have been under strict water restrictions that up until these last few weeks of May were only going to get tougher. That means no unnecessary water usage such as washing the car or watering the lawns (who needs clean cars and green lawns anyway?) We are encouraged not to take baths and to keep showers shorter than the length of two songs on the radio. We reuse our shower water on the garden and I can’t remember the last time I showered without a bucket between my legs!

It has gotten so dry that heritage listed trees are beginning to die in the Botanical Gardens. Water has been taken from leaking community swimming pools (which cannot be refilled because of the leaks and because of the leaks they are too much of a drain on the water levels-so no swimming for the kids in the poor suburbs) and used to fill those orange and white plastic traffic barricades you see along highway construction sites. These are then placed strategically around the base roots of our most endangered trees and encouraged to slowly leak their contents thus saving the trees. Needless to say, our parks are beginning to look a bit like some cheap art installation by a second-rate Christo wanna-be.

But if you think that’s bad it’s nothing compared to the rural areas. Farmers in the bush are doing it really hard. There are children in some outback farming and cattle stations starting school this year without ever having experience rain. Not once in their lifetime. I was mildly amused when a friend’s daughter asked my once, “What’s that white stuff?” while looking at a picture of my dog posing in front of a snow bank back in Wisconsin.

Really…? “That’s snow mate.”

I can see now that the sun is rising. The sky has turned from and inky indigo to gray and the rain is softening. I turn on the radio and listen as the weatherman forecasts, “showers for all capitol cities”.

This is very good news for all.

Oh yea…Paul Wolfowitz is also being kicked out of the World Bank and David Hicks is on his way back from Guantanamo. Can the day get any better???