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.