29/08/25 On A Rainy Day

An icy wind blew straight from Antarctica, teasing Australia's southern states with snow falling within 35km of the capital cities. Adelaide got all excited and briefly issued a tornado watch. Trees blew over right, left, and centre and power lines followed suit.  Tired travellers on aeroplanes from Singapore suddenly found themselves en route for Melbourne and crossing their fingers that it wasn't windy there too.

We squeezed the car into its holiday digs and, for the first time ever, eschewed thermos coffee lakeside in Milang for scones and cream withv rellies in Mt Barker which was far more convivial and warmer to boot.

Down in Milang the sun popped out between rain bands.  The wind, however, still spoke of icebergs and penguins.

Tiny hailstones splattered on the rooftops and puddled in the gutters outside as we drank our tea. Not that I got to drink tea for long, because I had to catch a bus back to the Airport Motel to meet my old nemesis, work. Personally I think work on a Friday afternoon should be illegal but here I was, working anyway. Roger rang in a break between drinking coffees. "Did the bus go through that storm? The hailstones were big as melons! And the lightning was something else!" He does exaggerate a tiny bit, my husband.

See? Thumping great hailstones they were.

In the dreary streets of Adelaide, waiting for a bus, I saw a competitor in the World Solar Challenge in the wild.  Mind you, there wasn't much solar happening at the time.

Back at the motel I had to shut the curtains lest I get too distracted by the cockatoo party taking place on the verandah across the way. Raucous wild cockatoos came to visit an elderly cocky living on the verandah, for all the world like a gang of teenagers visiting Grandpa. They squabbled with each other and chased pigeons for fun while I channelled my inner cockatoo paparazzi and procrastinated Friday afternoon work.

Talking with grandpa.

The gang,

More hail blew through and the cockatoos flew away. Car-less, we took the (warmer) path of least resistance and dined in the downstairs restaurant which was all very normal apart from a man who brought his own makings and carefully made ham and cheese sandwiches while the diners around him ate more conventional restaurant meals and the wait staff, to their credit, treated him as normal.

Back in our room the wind rattled the windows and more rain splattered the glass. The BOM promised blithely that all would be sunshine and rainbows by tomorrow, which it better be or I'll have words with Antarctica. I've got a plane to catch and have no intention of being diverted to Melbourne, as nice a city as it may be.