A welcome break but hard work.

I know, hard to believe, but it’s raining again. By this time I expect your thoughts are along the lines of “I wish he would just shut up about that rain” Well, I just wish it would stop raining for a while – I’m getting waterlogged.   To add insult to injury it’s  cold – freezing really. This is not surprising because the  fiction writers that forecast the weather have said cold, wet with the possibility of snow in the Adelaide hills this weekend. In Scotland it rains from time to time and one of my most loved definitions of Scottish  weather comes from a Ken McClure book

“Fenton’s Winter” where the two main characters are in Edinburgh sheltering from the rain in a doorway. One says to his mate “All this rain – do you think maybe God has something against Scotland?” His friend’s reply “No – I think it’s a character development agreement  He has with John Knox. I mean, lets face it, if we were enjoying ourselves we’d feel guilty!”

But if it rains so much how can we tell the difference between winter and summer ?  Oh that’s easy – in Summer the rain is actually quite warm – wet, but warm,  whereas in winter the rain is very cold, and we have a special name for it – Snow.. I know, Scottish people joke about the weather all the time, but what else can we do ?

The seriousness of the weather is such that the Adelaide central bus station has said that it will stay open all night during the  extreme weather. It will provide a place of warmth and shelter for the elderly and the homeless. There will also be food and hot drinks provided. I have to say that the Bus Station has gone up in my estimation of it.  There is flooding in most areas in Adelaide, expected flooding in the Adelaide Hills and still looks like snow in the wee small hours. But we have been told to  brace for wild weather over the next few days. Like the weather we have had thus far has not been wild enough?

Tomorrow (Friday) we have been asked – at very short notice I might add – to organise catering for  part of the army group that has taken over parts of the town.  Presently there are about 4000 Military Personnel, soldiers and admin. here in town. No we are not catering for  all that lot – but we are catering for about 200+ who have organised a “Show and Tell” day at Civic Park . The bulk of the Army Group are stationed at Cultana – which is the military playpen of about 2090 square km. and that’s only part of it. Anyway it’s part of the main training area for the 1st. Brigade, 7th Battalion  Royal Australian Regiment (7 RAR) as well as units of the Australian Light Horse – so a lot of soldiers wandering around the town. Annabell has medical appointments tomorrow so I can’t help out until later in the day. On the Sunday, we have organised a Cake Stall so that should be interesting. I wont be at that! This is being held in the Stratco (hardware company) carpark.  Oh Annabell is making

cakes and biscuits (cookies) for

this,  but I wont be there other than first thing in the morning to take her things down to the RFDS stall.

Next weekend ( 1st. 2nd. 3rd. July) we are catering for a big diving course being held out at Point Lowly – about 30 km from here. I am there on the Saturday and I have to pick up a couple of people and take them out there. We are three groups, one Friday, one Saturday and one Sunday. I have the Saturday group. Our contribution to Central Operations will be $45,000 this year – which is  pretty good for a small band of people.  It’s been a lot of work at times but we have the highest number of  RFDS landings in Australia – 573 this year. It’s not that we have a lot of sick people here but if there is an accident or an emergency in a community hospital  further north, the RFDS will pick up the patient and bring them to the nearest major hospital – us. It may well be that all we can do is stabilize , call back the RFDS and get the patient off to  the Flinders Medical Center or the Royal Adelaide Hospital for specalised treatment that we cannot provide. So a lot of that accounts for the large number of landings.