Wednesday, December 27, 2006
I'M DREAMING OF A WHITE CHRISTMAS............
This Christmas would have to be one of the strangest on record I think.
After the months of hot and dry weather, which have seen over 800,000 hectares ( or about 2 million acres ) of Victoria burnt to a crisp, we finally got a cold and wet spell just a few days before Christmas.
And boy did it come down on Friday!
After a day of hot wind stirring up the Dust Bowl that is our backyard, clouds dark as dogs' guts rolled in and before you could say "I think it's going to rain" the heavens opened up and put on a drenching the likes of which I hadn't seen in a long time.
So much so that in the five metres it took to get from the car to the front door of the pub, I made a grand entrance looking like a drowned rat.
The good side of all this is that the much needed water has put a delay on the death of various flora that make up our garden and vegie patch.
It also meant that the firefighters received some well earned and needed relief and many were able to celebrate Christmas, some even with their families.
My Christmas was a fairly sedate affair.
Spent lunch at my old housemates Keli and Jade's place and the evening with my good mates Steve and Amy.
Managed to have a phone conversation with the relatives who were Christmassing in Poland and found out that they still hadn't had any snow.
A bit disappointing for my sister's man Glenn who was looking forward to his first white Christmas.
Apparently it was cold, but no joy on the snow front.
Down under though there were reports of snow in the mountains, highly unusual considering it's the middle of summer and lunch was the closest I ever had to a white Christmas in Australia.
There were cold southerlies coming in from Antarctica and at one point it was hailing and that's good enough for me.
I'm sure there were thousands of people planning on having Christmas barbecues only to be forced indoors by the inclement weather.
On a sadder note, the current road toll for the holiday season stands at 30.
It may not be much by say Russian standards where about 35,000 people are killed each year, but still it is a significant number.
Probably not as significant as the amount of people requiring hospitalisation.
According to statistics, there are about 48 major road trauma crashes each day in Victoria.
That's not deaths or minor smashes, but the ones where ambulances, fire crews, police and trauma departments are employed in extracting, transporting and bolting back together the injured occupants of the vehicles involved or the pedestrians / bicyclists.
Now if the other states and territories were to be included, I would imagine that number would surely rise by a fair amount.
In short, having been and still recovering from getting smacked around by a semitrailer I am very grateful for not spending Christmas in intensive care or a trauma ward and do feel for those whose Christmas has been marred by either being involved in a smash or having to tirelessly work during that period 'extracting, transporting and bolting back together' the former.
After the months of hot and dry weather, which have seen over 800,000 hectares ( or about 2 million acres ) of Victoria burnt to a crisp, we finally got a cold and wet spell just a few days before Christmas.
And boy did it come down on Friday!
After a day of hot wind stirring up the Dust Bowl that is our backyard, clouds dark as dogs' guts rolled in and before you could say "I think it's going to rain" the heavens opened up and put on a drenching the likes of which I hadn't seen in a long time.
So much so that in the five metres it took to get from the car to the front door of the pub, I made a grand entrance looking like a drowned rat.
The good side of all this is that the much needed water has put a delay on the death of various flora that make up our garden and vegie patch.
It also meant that the firefighters received some well earned and needed relief and many were able to celebrate Christmas, some even with their families.
My Christmas was a fairly sedate affair.
Spent lunch at my old housemates Keli and Jade's place and the evening with my good mates Steve and Amy.
Managed to have a phone conversation with the relatives who were Christmassing in Poland and found out that they still hadn't had any snow.
A bit disappointing for my sister's man Glenn who was looking forward to his first white Christmas.
Apparently it was cold, but no joy on the snow front.
Down under though there were reports of snow in the mountains, highly unusual considering it's the middle of summer and lunch was the closest I ever had to a white Christmas in Australia.
There were cold southerlies coming in from Antarctica and at one point it was hailing and that's good enough for me.
I'm sure there were thousands of people planning on having Christmas barbecues only to be forced indoors by the inclement weather.
Crackers everywhere!!!
On a sadder note, the current road toll for the holiday season stands at 30.
It may not be much by say Russian standards where about 35,000 people are killed each year, but still it is a significant number.
Probably not as significant as the amount of people requiring hospitalisation.
According to statistics, there are about 48 major road trauma crashes each day in Victoria.
That's not deaths or minor smashes, but the ones where ambulances, fire crews, police and trauma departments are employed in extracting, transporting and bolting back together the injured occupants of the vehicles involved or the pedestrians / bicyclists.
Now if the other states and territories were to be included, I would imagine that number would surely rise by a fair amount.
In short, having been and still recovering from getting smacked around by a semitrailer I am very grateful for not spending Christmas in intensive care or a trauma ward and do feel for those whose Christmas has been marred by either being involved in a smash or having to tirelessly work during that period 'extracting, transporting and bolting back together' the former.
This,
is better than this:
is better than this:
.
