Storms

Well we haven't gotten down to the beach much this season, been a bit busy building (and enjoying) our pool. Anyway, the recent storm in Melbourne allowed me to get a dose of beach fun. I have always wanted to bodyboard in my own front yard.

The hailstorm was an amazing experience. Fortunately we don't have any west windows so we only had a smashed skylight and relatively minor ceiling flood. Up close the roof is battered but it looks fine otherwise. I had just finished putting up the pool solar heater a couple of hours before the storm hit so I am dreading turning it on. The Delica is in a workshop for repairs so Annie had her car parked in the middle of the double carport, so that only copped one or two small dents. The caravan has a smashed window but is basically OK. The houses all around us have broken windows, smashed tiles, flooding etc. Power was off for 48 hours.

I should have kept some of the big hailtstones, but we weren't thinking of souvenirs at the time. There were plenty of them at least 60mm. They seemed to be coming in at about 45 degrees, often bouncing over head height like a Glen McGrath missile. All sorts of shapes and sizes too - smooth or spiky spheres, rough irregular shapes, even some near perfect 'fat donut' type shapes.