Wet.

It's been raining. A lot. Lots of small towns around have been flooded. This dam is usually completely closed with the river side being a deep gully with a few puddles in it. Not any more. There are, as you can see five (5) flap gates that can be opened, and yesterday when I took this the fourth one was just being closed. I think that all five were open at some stage. We took the boys for a look a couple of times, and the little carpark at the dam was massively overcrowded each time. The beloved has the view that people want to see it through some kind of small-town mentality, but I think there's something more than that going on. For one, it's a bit like why you might go to look at a waterfall, there's something fascinating about that much water pouring over a cliff. For another, it was kind of like a giant game of Pooh Sticks. There is a lot of debris on the dam side, whole trees that have washed down the streams and creeks that feed in, and they're now washing over the dam downriver. Not just the children, but adults who were watching were also shouting with excitement when the biggest trunks and clumps of wreckage slipped over the top.

If you go here, you can see a pic I took in March of the same dam. Today's post's pic was taken from the railing where E and the beloved are standing.

It's stopped raining for now, and is supposed to stay clear for a few days, so I have washing on the line at last.

In other news, yes, it is whooping cough. We don't know if any of the rest of us have it. We've all had the nasal swabs and we're waiting for the results. E has a cough, and the beloved is going to France for a week on Sunday for work (he's currently on antibiotics). D'Arcy is now almost finished his course, and is no longer contagious, so I sent him hacking off to school today as Friday is usually a pretty slack day, and it's his last chess class for the year (or in fact for ever, with that teacher, due to the change of schools next year) so we thought it might be good to go. Next week is the last week, so it'll be pretty relaxed, and with luck he'll get to do more hanging out than usual. He's also supposed to get his school report back today. His cough isn't too bad, he hasn't spewed from it so far, though he'll probably set me up as a bad parent by doing it at school today.

Gah. (a moan)

I'm so totally in a funk. So many things right now it's all a bit much. D'Arcy has been coughing for a few days (a week?) and his teacher has been nagging me (via him) to go to the doctor. We did today, and of course they suspect whooping cough. He was an absolute champ when the pathology collector did the nasal swab, which meant that she got a good sample and maybe the result will be reliable. Of course this has sent me into a tailspin. Regular readers (are there any of you?) will know that D'Arcy's dad didn't want (amusing sidenote, I just repeatedly typed "wank" then, except that he does) to vaccinate him, and essentially bullied me into agreeing with that. So I am giving myself a hard time about that. E, on the other hand is fully vaccinated so he will have some protection I guess. Culture should be ready in a few days they reckon, so we'll know for sure then. If it's positive, then we all need preventative doses of anti-biotics. Bleh.

The other thing that is bothering me is that D's dad put his name down at a private (co-ed) school a couple of years ago. No consultation with me, of course, and I didn't really stand up to that either. I made it clear that I wasn't happy with it, but that's as far as it went. His name stayed on the list. It seemed for a while that it wasn't something I needed to worry about, but while we were in Hobart, I got a phone call from the ex, saying that he'd been offered a place for next year 2011. When we got home, we finally arranged to do the tour of the school, and actually it was pretty impressive. I've been trying to think about where D might go for high school. This looked like a good option, but the offer was for next year...I decided in the end that it would be okay for him to go there, but of course he's really unhappy about the move. He doesn't want to leave his mates for the last two years of primary school, which I can understand, I guess. Still, I feel like the bad one again. And now he'll miss at least a few days of school next week until we know the whooping cough status, and he's had a course of anti-biotics....