I spoke too soon!

Really shouldn't have said anything about the Kholo bridge being passable again! My neighbour saw my previous blog entry (linked on Facebook) and told me that 'they' were going to open the flood gates at the Wivenhoe dam that evening. And now, 3 days later, the water is 5m over the bridge!! That sort of height is almost incomprehensible! About 3 me's one on top of the other, on top of the bridge!! (Update: it's now 6.15m!!) And this morning when I drove out to go to work the back way, there was water over the only road out. I probably could have gone through, but I didn't trust that I'd be able to get home again, so ended up coming home and here I am today!  I'll have to see what it's like tomorrow ... There have continued to be spells of really heavy rain every half an hour or so.

Had a nice day yesterday - despite the rain! Ross came over for lunch and we managed to put a 2nd old table into the pond in breaks in the rain, and then moved some of the pond plants around.  The water lily is now in a new place, where it can hopefully spread across the surface of the pond.

Had fun cooking too - made a spinach tart, and also this amazing starter that my Mum does (from a recipe book called Easy to Entertain by Patricia Lousada) - grilled stuffed avocado. Sounds mad, but you mix some mayonnaise, curry powder, ginger, chopped up mint and some prawns, stuff the avocado halves and then put under the grill for 3-5 minutes, or until it starts to brown. It is is just delicious!!

Yoga on Saturday afternoon was really lovely. I felt focussed and strong (at least until near the end!) And then at the end the teacher came over and started talking to me. Said that my practice was really improving! I couldn't believe it! The previous class I'd felt like he was ignoring me, even disapproving of me (ever the paranoid one!!) Anyway, I know these sorts of things aren't supposed to matter, but I was really happy when he said that!

2011 stuff

No more bridge pictures! The water is now under the bridge, but as far as I know the road is still too broken up around it for the bridge to be (normally) usable. I'll drive down and take a look on the weekend - this week I have just been driving straight into work via the back road.

I'm kind of contemplating whether I should get into big New Year's resolutions again this year. I know last year I said I wanted

1. to be able to jump back. Well, failed but I tried, and I can sort of/partly jump forward now at least, so I guess that's something! and
2. to be more sociable and have people over for weekend lunches. That's pretty much a complete fail! I think the only thing I can put that down to is complete laziness!!

So -  I think I'll have to carry No. 2 forward again for this year, and the other? Well, I think I'll just aim to be able to bind in Marichyasana C - preferably on both sides. (I fool myself by putting the word 'reliably' in front of 'bind', but to be honest in the past couple of years it's been rare that I can bind even one side!) And of course there's a whole long yoga wish list in my head, but I think I'll just leave it at this and see what transpires in 2011!

I'm really hoping I'll be able to get to Dena's Bali workshop again this year. She's doing a two-week workshop this time but I could only go for one week. However, I'll just need to wait and see how other eventualities pan out, because if there's a conflict then this would probably lose out this time.

And gardening - I really want to do some more work in the garden this year! (We're off resolutions now, just plans!) At the moment I'm concentrating a bit on the pond (which used to be a swimming pool!). It had got really overgrown with pond weed, but now I've got rid of most of that, I am able to add some more plants again. Got a really nice water lily last weekend - 'raspberry red'! Sounds nice! It flowers from October to May, so hopefully I'll see some raspberry red water lilies on the pond this year! And this weekend a friend is coming round for lunch (see, I'm starting on the resolutions!!) and I'm hoping he'll help me put an old table together (that he found for me just before I went overseas) and put it into the pond. That's what I've been using to sit the water plant pots onto in the pool. I'm just worried that someone (me really as it's my pond!) will have to actually get into the almost black water to place the table!! Oh well ...

Back to yoga. Over the holidays I did practice quite a bit - mostly alternating standing and seated practices. Went to my first class back at the shala on Wednesday, and my lack of intensity over the holidays was really shown up! I was exhausted (and soaking) by the end! Did short lunchtime practices today and yesterday ... yesterday I only managed some sun salutes, and felt pretty grumpy  <grin> But today was better - I did all my 'forbidden' poses!

Spot the bridge ?!

And this is pretty much the same view as in the previous photo, but 2 days later! The whole bridge is now 3m under water!!! The main Brisbane water supply - Lake Wivenhoe, is just a few kilometers upstream, and on Tuesday night they opened the floodgates as the dam was overfull! Apparently the gates won't be closed again till Friday night, so not much hope of seeing the bridge again (let alone being able to drive over it!) until sometime late next week I reckon! Luckily the back way out is open now - though instead of a 15 minutes drive into Ipswich, it's now 35 minutes! And the way over the river is now over a weir and I noticed the water was only about 1m below that today!

It's funny - a similar situation happened just 2-3 months ago while I was overseas. Both my neighbour and my housesitters emailed me photos a bit like this, and I remember thinking - thank god I'm not there! Karma!!

I have been enjoying doing yoga with David Swenson - I have his old Primary Series DVD. It really makes me think I must practice at a much slower pace when I'm doing it completely on my own, as I'm breaking out in much more of a sweat than normal! My normal class starts up again next week.

Apart from that life is quiet. The weather is now improving, and I'm sure it's much nicer at the festival now. If only the weather situation had been reversed - nice at the beginning and awful during the end ... Oh well! I managed to spring Jedda from the pet motel (they normally won't let any animals out at all between Christmas and New Year!!) and she is very happy to be home - hardly letting me out of her sight  :)

Rain Everywhere!

I drove home over this bridge yesterday afternoon. The water was just under the bridge, but the actual road-base on my side had been lifted up badly already. I was only just able to get over it without damaging the car! And this is the view (from my side!) this morning!!

Has been a real drama-filled couple of days! It's funny - people think "Australian Christmas" = "barbecue on the beach in the blazing sun". Well, it hasn't been like that this year. (Not actually sure that I've ever had an Aussie Christmas like that!) It has been raining and raining for most of December. Having committed myself to volunteering at the Woodford music festival, which involves camping, I've been watching the weather with increasing dread! The last time I volunteered at Woodford - 3 years ago, it rained a lot and it was just awful! My tent leaked, mud was everywhere!! And I said I'd never go back ... :)

So on Boxing Day I flew back to Brisbane, collected my car (pre-packed for Woodford camping!) from near the airport and set off for Woodford. In the rain! Once I'd registered I set off to find where my friends had set up their campsite. The internal roads (tracks really!) were just dreadful - worse that I'd ever driven on. I had to drive through these huge pools/puddles of water that I'd never normally dream of driving through. A couple of times the car bottom was scraping along the bottom!!! I was soo freaked out!! Eventually I found it, and Helen helped me set up my tent - again in the rain!! I was wondering how I'd ever be able to drive out again (a week later when the festival finishes).

I then went to the actual Festival site and did the orientation for the Internet Cafe (where I was volunteering). Was reasonably encouraged to see that the road out appeared to be in much better condition than the road in! And then went back to the campsite, sat and drank red wine with Helen and Michelle. Then when I went to bed I discovered some of my bedding had got wet! There was a stream about 2 meters away, and I kept imagining it getting higher and higher with all the rain, and flooding the tents! So somewhere in that night I finally decided that unless I felt better I would to go home the next day! Pack up my tent and everything, get the car out of the campsite into the main carpark and then do my first shift at the Internet Cafe, before leaving. I could always drive back from home to do volunteer shifts. Then I fell asleep!!

Next morning I did all that - though of course there was a bit of reluctance to leave when I was wondering around the Festival site looking for something to have for lunch. There is something very seductive about it, even in the rain! (But that doesn't include camping in the rain at all!!)

And, thinking that the Kholo Bridge might be closed, I decided to come home the 'back way'. But I discovered there was a torrent of water over the road that even a big 4-wheel drive wasn't going to attempt, and I certainly wasn't in my little car!! So I decided to check out the Kholo Bridge before giving up and seeing if I could go and stay at my Aunt's place. And luckily it was 'open', although there were 'closed' signs up, but pulled a bit to one side. The water hadn't got over the bridge (like it is in the photo above). But the tarmac on one side was all broken up by the water that had come up there, and it was only because people had made a way through that I could get across it without damaging the car bottom! And now this morning the river has risen again, as evidenced by the photo, so no way anyone is getting over it for a few days now! So it's lucky I did a bit of shopping before I came home!! Marooned for a day or two probably, after which I'll try the back way again!!

Terracotta Warriors

I quite forgot to mention yesterday ... When we went to Sydney on Wednesday we went to a quite wonderful exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW, titled The First Emperor - China's Entombed Warriors. The exhibition contained various artefacts from the time the terracotta warriors were created (and buried!) plus 8 of the warriors (one of each of the 'types') and two terracotta horses.

Now of course I've heard of these amazing - don't really know what to call them! "Things" doesn't seem right - they felt so real! But anyway, I haven't been to China (yet!) so had never seen them, and had no idea of the impact they have. I think it also helps seeing them really close up. It was a really touching and mesmerizing exhibition - all those 8000 warriors buried since around 200BCE, protecting their emperor. Whose tomb they haven't got to excavate yet - so much other archeology to explore!
Exhibition link

Christmas in Bowral

Lazy days down at my Mum's ... As if! Life is not like that with her, although she'd deny that! But lots of fun nonetheless!

Arrived on Sunday afternoon, and within a very short period of time we were off to the local cinema to see a preview showing of The King's Speech. With Geoffrey Rush and Colin Firth (plus the lovely Helena Bonham Carter playing the Queen Mum - in earlier days). Totally wonderful film - hope it gets Oscars for its stars!

The next day it was all hands on deck to prepare for a dinner party that Mum had organised for that night! A few dramas but it all worked out and everyone enjoyed themselves.

Since then we've been up to Sydney for the night to have a pre-Christmas dinner with John, Gina and Peter in Peter's new flat. Which has absolutely no furniture in it at the moment - we even had to bring the chairs to sit on! But it was a fun night.

I've managed to find space to do yoga a couple of times too. Did standing one day and today I've done the seated poses (well, most of them!) Now I have to get back to cooking dinner ...:)

The Magic Carpet from Marrakech!

Here's my magical Moroccan carpet in its new home! Although I have to admit that sometimes it doesn't look as tidy as this - Miss Jedda Pussycat seems to think it's her plaything to take running jumps at (or from) and slide around the floor on it ... in fact that it's her very own Magic Carpet!!  ... :)