It's raining.

Big deal you think. Who cares? Well, we are in the middle of a drought, water restrictions are severe, never this strict that I can remember.
Now the latest news is floods.
As I sit here, blogging, it's pouring down rain for the second day in a row. It's still steamy hot, and this isn't typical of Melbourne, because when it usually rains here, its always cold. Now I feel like I'm in the tropics. Having a backyard full of luscious palm trees seems to heighten the effect.

Huge floods hit Flinders Rangers. "The heaviest rain since European settlement." I love superlatives, don't you?

I can't help but recall a book by Australia's only nobel prize winning author, Patrick White. The Tree of Man. Within this epic story of Australian farmers, there is the repetitive cycle of drought followed by bushfires followed by floods. It's so obvious that this is what Australia is all about and yet we are constantly surprised by flood, drought and bushfires, as if they were something out of the ordinary, something we didn't expect or shouldn't expect, when in fact it's as normal as night following day.