Knitting loose ends

By now, with having had little to no Internet for over a month, I have a collection of unfinished threads. hence, I thought it a good idea to go back and tidy up some loose ends.

Well, with little to add to the frog posting, I also have little to add about the dread Jenny Macklin (the politician who said what she really thought for once and told Social Welfare recipients they were being paid plenty to live on. She did, of course, subsequently retract and apologise - after all, what entrenched politician does not value their very nice payroll?

Next came the query about whether or not this was actually the year of the ant rather than the snake. I stand by my conclusion about the invasion of ants. If my head feels itchy, I scratch - and out drops one of the tiny alien ants - presumably I have an ant nest in my  head? Read the paper? Ants walk out of it and then nip you sharply. I am becoming blase about the whole thing, no longer wincing at the mini-bodies in every cup of coffee - after all, you can eat ants, if you're keen enough. These fellows volunteer to be ingested, so if I can't fish out the little hard bodies I now just ignore them.

With the coming of the rain to the eastern side of Queensland the bushfires were conveniently doused. However, there is still a problem down south, in Victoria and Tasmania. Our problems here have been floods, which everybody who watches world news will know about. To be honest, I was puzzled as to why our area of the Darling Downs was affected, my rain gauge registering a little over 100mm for the week of rain. it was very nice for my water tanks (now full) and the grass, which grew a foot a day, but why were we cut off? The explanation was simple: the hills to the east of us had attracted nearly 800mm of rain, which poured in torrents down the hillsides and across the plain below. Highways were cut in all directions, Cunningham's Gap was yet again affected by landslides and all our local roads were flooded. To the south of us the main back road to Warwick had a sad happening. I still can't help laughing, though... After the massive floods two years ago billions of dollars were allocated to repair the damage throughout the State. This money was prioritised so that highways scored repairs before lesser roads. We waited for our turn, meanwhile using the patched-up road quite happily. In November our turn arrived, with all the inconvenience involved with waiting for men with lollipops or interminable red lights, diversions, the works.

The huge project underway meant three kilometres of road had to be taken apart and put back together again. It was very nice, smooth dirt awaiting its top coat of bitumen. The blokes went off for their Christmas and New Year holidays, but come the 2013 floods the road wasn't there for them to come back to. Much of it had washed away into the neighbouring paddocks, adding to the tribulations of the local farmers.

Road in flood; Warwick Daily News

The above picture was the highway; no-one could get to our stretch of road until later. Anyway, now it is very interesting getting to Warwick, and Main Roads have to start all over again spending a lot of money to repair the same stretch of road. A few very clever people have been suggesting that perhaps it would be a good idea to remember floods and plan for them when repairing infrastructure...

I'll finish off the loose ends, tomorrow.

Cheers - Fliss