Floods, Hospital and Wetlands.

Today was a really good, warm day after the weather of the last  week.  The government has announced that restrictions are to be

lifted and sign-in  rules scrapped. Still no change on masks but that will probably be next.   Here in South Australia Covid cases continue to decline and we are now below 1400 cases a day with 246 in hospital. We had a telephone call from Flinders and we will be  going to Adelaide next Thursday for the Day Surgery on Friday. Flinders will call again on Tuesday with the final instructions. It is possible that she may have to see the doctor in person in which case we will leave on Wednesday but we wont know about that until Tuesday and I will be ready to leave on Wednesday if required.

In the post I wrote and sent off the other day,  I did mention that there was  major infrastructural damage to road and rail lines – this afternoon the State Government has declared a Major Emergency  to  deal with the structural damaged caused by the storms. Don’t know how this will work, but I expect it will give the State Govt. some extra powers to cope with what has happened. As I said I have never seen anything like this before. Yes we have had rain and a few storms but this beats all. We had another small storm in the early hours of this morning – nothing too great but loud – I know because it seemed to be right outside my window and  woke me up at 2am. By the time I got settled back down, I closed off the alarm clock, so no walk this morning. Since Benji was quite happy sleeping, I don’t think he was too fussed.

At the far end of Robinson Street, is the Pit which probably has some fancy name like “Strom Water Catchment Area” but it’s still a pit some 20 feet deep. This is not only filled to the brim but is overflowing.  We have storm water drains and the water from these  drain into a channel which in turns  drains into the Spencer Gulf – at least it does in this

area. In other areas the storm water  drains through garbage catchment filters

into the Wetlands. And before you say anything, yes, there are notices everywhere  warning people to stay out of the water. This side of the fence is the end of the town and beyond is bushland, so the area of the pit is fenced off. If the boom had continued, this land would have been taken up and built on, but the Mining Boom ended and so did the house construction.

Anyway, it’s nice to simply have a day off and I don’t think either of us suffered.  Still we did go out on a few errands and he was quite happy sitting in the front seat of the car with his harness on. I said before he is most definitely not a “head out of the window” kind of dog and is quite happy to  curl up in the seat and watch  what I am doing and from time to time I reach across and scratch his head.  Annabell has not had such a good day. There are a couple of concerns but she is still improving and we take things a day at a time.    I  am ashamed and sad to say that I am really not the most patient of people but I am trying ( sometimes very trying!!)  Depending on how Annabell is, I may take Benji for a wander  around the Wetlands and take my camera with me.  I have not been out with the camera for some time, so  I think it’s overdue an outing and it has been a while since we were at the wetlands anyway.