Another day dawns...

Today I started the day turning on the TV straight away which is something I just don't normally do. I wanted to see how the city fared with the high tide affected the flooding river at 3 am. The good news was that the peak level was lower than expected; the bad news was that many homes and businesses  flooded over the roofs. I found myself overcome with emotion for the plight of those poor people; some of whom had gone through all of this before with the infamous 1974 flood. I sat there sobbing...
Yesterday we found out that one of our girls had been wading through floodwaters at her work the day before. She then went to stay at a friend's place and within 24 hours she was again wading through chest deep flood waters to get to safety. We believe she and her car are now safe with a friend who lives away from the river.



N standing on the footpath near Suncorp Evacuation area, Milton. The day after this her work building was under water to the second level.


I know this tragedy has been on news reports in many parts of the world as well as the rest of Australia. Interstate family members who I haven't seen or spoken to for years (well I send Christmas and birthday cards to some but never hear back!) have contacted us to see if we are ok...that's pretty special that they are thinking of us and are concerned for our safety.

Showing the flooding (r.h.); compared with the same scene without the river flooding

Mid morning a teaching friend came over and we exchanged Christmas gifts. The gift giving is much later than we intended but in the first week of the holidays her elderly mother was hit by a car and taken to hospital. Her mum is still in hospital but is on the mend from her injuries which include 2 broken bones in one leg and an ugly sore on the foot of the other leg. Naturally Tricia has been preoccupied with visiting her mum and also tidying up her mum's townhouse a bit as the OT was concerned it was a bit cluttered  for someone with both legs injured. Later we went out and had a coffee at a local coffee shop to continue our catch-up.

This afternoon we went to my husband's cousin's place where another cousin was also visiting to work on the common family tree. We took all DH's mother's boxes and bags of papers etc `and filled in a few blanks. There are possibly a few 'skeletons' and some 'cover ups' in the family history and DH was able to give the others some anecdotal info that he had heard from his late mother. DH's branch of the family had maintained contact with a cousin of his mother who was unknown to the other cousins until this elderly cousin turned up to a family funeral. This cousin is now 89 so it's important that some of DH's generation gets her information. We also need to organise to get some birth and death certificates to fill in some gaps. The Historical Index online doesn't give enough details and as well people are often called by one name but have actually been registered with another first name, or a different spelling. Then of course the stigma of illegitimate births of those times means that often elaborate cover ups were devised...DH says he's not enamoured with the idea of working on family history as he feels looking back is a waste of time...it's the future that counts...Myself and his cousins think otherwise...