The storm

As I type this I'm knocking on wood because finally some luck has come our way and we are grateful.  Last week our region was hit by a small cyclone causing damage and flooding.  Many people have lost their homes and most were without power for between 2-7 days.  Our suburb is a very leafy one with lots of gum trees on sloping blocks.  It was only through Facebook did we realise a terrible storm had struck and we were vulnerable.  As luck would have it, we were not home.  We weren't even in the state.  We were in Queensland having our first family holiday and enjoying the glorious sunshine and warm weather (more of that in blog posts to come).  Our house is surrounded by tall gum trees and we became worried as to what we would return to.

My mum and neighbours kept an eye on our house and despite all the odds (and many homes in our suburbs having trees fall on them) the house survived the cyclone.

When we returned from our holiday our yards were a mess.  Lots of fallen branches of all sizes scattered about but somehow none managed to land on our house or outside belongings.  Hooray for luck!  We managed to avoid the storm, power outage, and damage.  Also, any guilt we had taking the kids out of school for a week was lost, as the school was closed the entire time we were away due to the storm.

A small tree by the driveway collapsed.

Just some of the branch debris.

More debris in the courtyard.
Miraculously any branches that fell missed our outdoor table setting.

Stacking up the many branches that fell.

More branches.

Nice and neat, awaiting council clean up.

Part of the roof of our pergola missing.