things that wash up after a storm

Sunday was the first day we had seen a break in the heavy constant rain in about 3 weeks. Honestly, it’s the most rain I can ever remember. For the first few days the sound of the rain on the tin roof was gorgeous and relaxing, but after a week of unrelenting rain day and night it just sounded like static and was driving me batty. We don’t have street gutters or storm water drains down our bushy end of the street, so the run-off from the road all cascaded down our yard, turned the front yard into rice paddy-like terraces, our driveway into a series of rapids, and our backyard into the Serengeti wetlands. The locals refer to it as “storm season”, but it’s more like a monsoon if you ask me.

In any case, Sunday was spent walking the beach perusing all that had been washed up on the shore. Glad to be out in the air again and to feel the sunshine. I've been to the beach each day since then, still enjoying it all, and the sand (much like our garden) is still soaked through with tiny streams trickling from the bush to the ocean. The creek that comes out on the beach has turned into a torrential river (well, almost). Where normally you can leap over it in one go, it took Mr You and I about 4 mins to cross; pants rolled up above our knees, carrying our shoes, tip-toeing along the river stone bed, navigating from one shallow patch to the next, all the while pushing against the current. I half expected to see salmon leaping up stream.

The rain did dampen my spirits (mainly because it lasted so long), but we really really needed it, and it's effects have been instant on my new herb garden :)