Wild and wooly weather

Well, it's been a full on week in this part of the world. SUCH a long week. A week ago I went and stayed with a friend for the weekend. It was a good weekend, tiring, but good and was ended with what turn out to be one hell of a storm (for some). I got JB to come and pick the kids and I up, and he arrived just as a storm, which he'd had on his tail the whole hour it took to get to my friends house and we quickly loaded the car as the first drops of rain were falling, then raced inside to watch. We didn't even know there was a storm coming, little did I know that storm was going to be the worst storm in over 25 years and end up with a bill of $145Million (and rising) for clean up costs... It was scary - looking out the window we were glad to be inside. Glad we didn't know HOW bad it was. As soon as the rain stopped we headed for home and within a block I verbalised 'should we go back? Should we be driving right now?' The way home was littered with debris, road blocks for flood water, fallen trees and power lines EVERYWHERE, police cars, ambulances, fire trucks, SES, no power (so no street lights) - pretty scary stuff. Our home was safe and sound though and all we really had to show for it was 35mm in the rain guage. As the last week of news has shown us we were blessed that day. Many were not and now Brisbane has been declared a national disaster zone. Full on.

Storms have continued throughout the week. Once again no damage here, though we've lost a good amount of topsoil from the back yard and there was temporary flooding at the bottom of the street (which is normal for this part of the world at this time of the year). It's quiet tonight - looking like we aren't going to get another.

After checking out the flood we walked up the street and my neighbour - new neighbour - called me over. He said he'd noticed that we have rising damp in our house. He said he is a building inspector. He said he'd also noticed that the kids are always coughing and that I am run down and he said that rising damp is a fungal infection that causes poor health and respiratory problems! I'd been wondering why this particular neighbour had moved in - I guess the universe sent him to go and get our house checked and dried out!! We do have major mould/fungal problems here and I'd put it down to living over the road from bush, thinking it was pretty much a given. JB has had a clairvoyant reading in the past that said he was either working or living in an environment with a high fungal spore content and that it was making him sick (he also has issues with fungi - he gets a skin rash all over him, which he got rid of about a year ago with a high dose of antifungals, but it's back again). I'm now wondering if this could be the underlying cause of the health issues I've been having over the past six years... (we've lived here for 11 years). Actually I first got pneumonia in 1999, a year and a half after we moved here. Guess I'd better make some enquiries, heh?

I SO need to renovate and this feels like another shove in that direction. Where is the money though???