Another sleepless night!

First let me say, we're all safe. YAY! But I'm so tired I'm a walking zombie! & Sorry if this post is photo heavy. Half the time my eyes can't believe what they are seeing let alone try to describe it in words!

Some residents are a little more comfortable than others...

We saw them from the road they were thrashing around in the water under tree branches.
I was concerned for their welfare, but just after I took this they bellowed loudly & charged at me !

Taken on Tuesday 7th before last nights torrential rains

Yup, that's the river, way, way over there. Normally you can't even see the river - it's definitely not meant to be all the way over here!

This is not a lake, it's normally a grassy paddock!

A close up across the new "lake"

I can't imagine even what the cost of re-fencing all these areas around here will cost.

Unfortunately it's not just water, it's debris and rubbish floating around, submerged objects and snakes.
We are also seeing (finding some in our house) - spider, ant, locust, bug and mosquito as they look for dry land!

See there is a road under there!

So those photos above were before last nights additional rain.
Dad's in hospital having his hip replacement done, he's high and dry on the hill, we were up there and saw the winds whip rain into the side of the hospital on the 2nd floor...we decided we'd better get on home.
Lucky we did, because just after we got home our street turned into a river...

This is only after the first 16mm of rain. We ended up getting more than 68mm through the night.

And just to see how fickle the weather is, this is mid-storm.

This morning the street was filled with water still, but has now gone down to gutter level and the middle of the street is clear. Our shadecloth has been ripped down and will need to be replaced before my plants get scorched. Everything is slowly drying out.

We were lucky...so lucky...Wagga is battered and bruised. The main street flooded with rain water and trees down everywhere - some streets evacuated, roads and suburbs closed off, power out.
It's been a bad night.

Theres heaps of photos on the internet of last nights/this mornings flash floods, we didn't take any after dark or this morning, mostly because i was scared and didn't feel it was safe and I didn't want to be out in it.

Upriver they have had even more rain than us, which means the dams will spill and the rivers and creeks will send it all into the river again - it's all headed down to us again we are back on flood watch. (were we ever not on flood watch this month)
Last night was hellish and I was too worried to sleep, I had a small nap this morning once Garry got to work safely, but i'm mostly too exhausted and too agitated to sleep for long. AND the news helicopters keep flying very low and loud over here.

The sun is out..it taunts us now! And here comes yet another helicoptor I'll go and do some crochet I think and calm down.

Pray for the water to not come down here! We've quite frankly had enough!

Bag Giveaway drawn perhaps from inside the ark!

Over the past couple of days a massive storm front washed out the centre of town. The rain was so heavy at times you could not hear each other shouting in the same room! Storm water poured into my friends shop and into their storage room damaging all the stock and sadly, peoples christmas layby's. It also filled the carpark under the mall like a swimming pool up to the roof of some unfortunate peoples cars. It was one hell of a downpour! Down our end of town the street gutters backed up and water covered the road, but we were lucky!

Road near our house

Today however despite the sun being out in force, all the rain water has come on down the creeks and river and been released from dams.

Water is moving slowly towards us

We are in the midst of packing up our most precious belongings into plastic containers that we just had to run out to buy. The containers are being packed  "just-in-case" as the flooded river waters come ever so slowly but menacingly towards us.

Who can believe we were so recently in drought

Currently we are scheduled for a 9.6 metre major flood tomorrow, peaking at 10 metres on Monday morning. If the Levee's hold I think we will be OK but pray for no more rain though as I'm nervous about it enough! Our phone line is all crackly and unusable for calls today, so our internet is up and down, and not expected to get any better til this flooding is all over...with more rain over the next 10 days likely!
The north & east of town have been evacuated today with roads cut off and flooding to their houses imminent as they have no protection from the Levee banks it's not going to be good news for them and I am praying that they will all have the strength to get through this.
What a sucky thing to happen right before Christmas!
GIVEAWAY! - bag and zippy pouch and the winner is...

Comment number 4 which is
Clare !!!

Clare said...

congrats on reaching a year of blogging - here's to many more years of sharing to come!! I enjoy catching up on your sewing adventures on google reader and will try to find a few mins to add a post in my blog about your giveaway. oh and I just LOVE the 70s vibe of the bag - takes me back to my childhood.

Thanks everyone for your comments, To the lovely Clare, Paisley coming your way! 

My creative space

My creative space this week is all about the ruffles.

After some initial but short-lived joy at being finished the ruffles, I realised I had sewn them to the side piece not the back!!! I seriously hate making little mistakes..and this was a BIG one!
No unpicking this...it's too much!
So...back to the cutting out new ruffles and new side pieces, which required some extra fabric to be purchased.

Finally made it onto the rest of the dress...

and then to the other

One is stripey, stripey spot, spot spot.
And the other is spotty, spotty, stripe stripe stripe.

I've got spotties and stripes and holly hobbies, elastics, casings, straps and ties, unders and overs and ruffles galore (and uppers and downers! I feel a little Dr Zeuss.
It's been an epic battle, 9 days now! Today with a little luck and no more mistakes!! I hope to be finished the Feliz  Felizes  Felizi Feliz' Felizeses dresses and finally on to other christmas gifts!
Hopefully my sister, but most importantly the twins will love their dresses.

For more creative spaces pop on over to Kootoyoo for the last My creative space for the year! I know! what will we do with our thursdays now!

P.S. If you feel inclined, please take part in my giveaway!! It's drawn on Saturday.