Sunday 30 January 2011

Day Five Hundred and Ninety Seven

Woke up early, was up by 6.30am, can't seem to sleep in these days.

Kate got up about 8.30. We hit the shops mid morning and bought some bits for the wedding. Got myself a tie which I'm really happy with.

In the afternoon we did more wedding stuff, went for a walk along the river. Early evening saw us have a Skype call with folks which was good, they arrive here in 10 days.

Watched some tennis in the evening, a movie and then bed.

This is quite funny advert that is playing here at moment

Saturday 29 January 2011

Day Five Hundred and Ninety Six

Saturday

Woke up at stupid o'clock and was up by 7am.

Spent morning tidying up awaiting Kates return. Headed to the airport in the afternoon to get Kate, so good to have her back now. We did a brief bit of shopping and then we had a dinner out at Gerties in New Farm.

Friday 28 January 2011

Day Five Hundred and Ninety Five

Friday

Got up and drove out to a couple more event sites this morning, they don't look in too bad a shape thankfully. Drove back to Teneriffe and then walked into the office.

Did some re planning during the afternoon.

Walked home and then drove back to the office to pick up a delivery which arrived. It's a wonderful set of plate ware form Bill and Carol for our wedding, its most gratefully received, although we wont open the boxes until we get back from the UK in March.

Skyped Kate before she went out and then went and got myself Fish and Chips this evening, first takeaway on ages.

Day Five Hundred and Ninety Four

Thursday

Brett (colleague) and I went out and walked some of the trail today to assess damage after the floods. Much to think about as a result.

Back to the office at lunchtime and planning work in the afternoon.

Came home and had a quiet night. Only 2 days til Kate is back in Brissie.

Wednesday 26 January 2011

Day Five Hundred and Ninety Three

Happy Australia Day 2011

Wednesday, another relaxed day for me. Went to the shops in the morning for some food, and took a walk in the afternoon although it was quite hot.

In the evening had a good Skype call with folks and brought them more up to speed on wedding things.

Kate collected her dress yesterday and seems very happy with it!

Not much else to report.

A good bit by Parky via Nick Bryant

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/nickbryant/2011/01/sir_michael_parkinsons_austral.html

Day Five Hundred and Ninety Two

Tuesday

A long day at work. Walked there and back, a beautiful day in Brisbane, lovely blue skies.

A quiet night at home, it's quiet without Kate here!

Some interesting post flood pics are here

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/gallery-e6frer9f-1225993255498?page=1

Monday 24 January 2011

Day Five Hundred and Ninety One

Monday

Back to work, was a lovey walk in this morning, not too hot and glorious blue skies. A day at work getting more updates on the trail.

back now, great lots of people are coming Walked home in the evening and didn't do much in the evening. Got the majority of our RSVPsfrom the UK for the wedding in 32 days time!

Day Five Hundred and Ninety

Hit the road early and visited a number of checkpoint sites for the event, they don't look in too bad a shape thankfully. That took best part of 4 hours driving so headed home for lunch.

Spent afternoon doing wedding things, talking to Kate on Skype etc.

Spoke to Hazel in the evening and did not much else rest of the day.

Saturday 22 January 2011

Day Five Hundred and Eighty Nine

Saturday

A quiet day at home, had some bloke around at 10am to do some tax assessment on the property for the owners, although i had woken up at 7.30 anyway.

Went shopping to the now no longer underwater Coles at New Farm. In the afternoon I went for a walk along the river to Teneriffe Ferry terminal and back.

Had a couple of Skype calls with Kate and her folks.

Quiet night in front of TV.

Day Five Hundred and Eighty Eight

Friday

A very long day in the Melbourne office undertaking scenario exercises for the event, this was aimed at testing our emergency response procedures etc. Went very well and highlighted some areas for improvement.

We went for a drink afterwards before heading tot he airport for a 9pm flight. Was one of those annoying flights that seemed to take forever to actually get off the ground. The crew were boarding plane at 8.30 am, however we still had to wait for the last annoying slow people who rocked up to gate at 8.59 so we didn't take off until after 9pm anyway.

Landed in Brissie at 10pm and headed home. Spoke to Kate which was nice to catch up. Off to bed.

Day Five Hundred and Eighty Seven

Thursday

A day long meeting with the whole TW team, we met at the 60L building in Carlton apparently a very eco friendly building. Their website is down at time of writing.

We all went for a vegetarian meal round the corner and then headed home to hotel.

Day Five Hundred and Eighty Six

Wednesday

Went into work late as I'm flew to Melbourne today. Took the 4pm flight and arrived into a cold Melbourne at just after 7pm. Headed to the hotel and then we went and met the rest of the team ant the Afghan Gallery Restaurant on Brunswick St.

Back to the hotel by 10.30 and off to bed.

Tuesday 18 January 2011

Day Five Hundred and Eighty Five

Tuesday

Absolutely scorching day in Brissie today, was 30+ when I walked to work at 8am. Stayed hot and sunny until a thunderstorm in the afternoon.

Here is a good selection of pics from the floods for history...

The aerial view

http://www.nearmap.com/?ll=-27.468907,153.025475&z=14&t=h

The pictures

http://www.smh.com.au/photogallery/environment/weather/the-most-striking-photos-of-the-floods/20110114-19qz3.html?selectedImage=1

and pictures of the clean up

http://media01.couriermail.com.au/multimedia/FourDaysThatHealedOurHearts/day1/index.html

Day Five Hundred and Eighty Four

Monday

It's weird getting up in the morning with no Kate here. Walked to work, its certainly getting hot here in Brisbane now the weather has turned.

Spent day working out consequences of flooding on event.

Came home and spent the night following up some wedding issues and then off to bed.

Sunday 16 January 2011

Day Five Hundred and Eighty Three

Sunday

Helped Bill and Carol move a pot in the garden they had bought.

Kate and I then drove to West Pymble to have a BBQ lunch with Steve and Val our friends from London who are now living back in Sydney.

We came home to Willoughby, Kate drove me to the airport and I headed back to Brisbane. Kate is working in Sydney this week.

I naughtily took some pics from the plane


Our old Newtown Flat (just above top right corner of park area)

Our old place in Glebe and the Anzac Bridge

Darling Harbour

The Bridge

The Bridge again

Clouds

Sunset

Sunset

Sundown

Sundown 2

Day Five Hundred and Eighty Two

Saturday

Another early start for a weekend, this time we had a meeting with our cake maker, this was at the Toaster, the Aussie folks will know what that is, anyone else just ask.

That all went well and we spent another 3 hours or so in Sydney buying things for wedding. It's all starting to come together nicely.

We nipped back to Willoughby and then back into town to share in Birthday drinks with Pru at the Beresford.

Got home late and crashed.

Day Five Hundred and Eighty One

We got up and drove to the Sergeants Mess for our final meeting about the wedding, it all went very well and we have most of the final details sorted.

Kate dropped me at the station and I grabbed a train into work at the Sydney office.

Went out for lunch with the Sydney TW team which was great.

Grabbed a train over to St Leonard's, Kate picked me up and we had a quiet dinner in Willoughby with Carol.

Thursday 13 January 2011

Day Five Hundred and Eighty

Brisbane dodged a bit of a bullet in the early hours, predicted high river peak of 5.5 m was only 4.6m in the end. This was a good thing.

We got up and packed up and head to the airport, no easy feat, a journey that takes 20 minutes took us 1.5 hours, basically a massive diversion round this...



The road to airport id the highway in bottom left of pic.

We also had to find petrol, we barely use any in the car these days and rarely fill up, typically when we did need to every station we passed was closed, finally found one with one pump running so stocked up

Got to airport and got bumped onto earlier flight, virgin were just getting people away as they arrived to free up seats for later.

Glad to be in Sydney for a bit, I think Brisbane will be a bit of a war zone for a few days.

Spent afternoon in office in Sydney and then had a nice Thai dinner in Willoughby. Tomorrow is wedding venue meeting.

Once again thanks for the texts and messages of concern for us, we are all OK.

Tuesday 11 January 2011

Day Five Hundred and Seventy Nine

A crazy day in Brisbane

No work as office still closed. Spent the day kind of working at home and making frequent trips to the river to check it's rise.

The river was flowing very fast and finally took it's toll on the CBD as seen below


(AAP: Dave Hunt)

There was lots of debris coming down the river, including pontoons, boats, trees and all kinds of things including part of the Drift restaurant. I caught this on the video posted at end of this post.


http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/iconic-brisbane-restaurant-sinks-beneath-river-20110112-19nar.html


We both fly to Sydney tomorrow, Kate was on the 11am flight, me on the 8pm, Ive decided to go earlier and get out of town, it does feel a bit like rats deserting a sinking ship but it's going to be rough here for a few days and we were due to be in Sydney anyway.

Thank you for all the calls of messages of support etc, my phone is out of credit so don't worry if you have not heard from me.

And so as we go to bed we await to see what the peak of the river brings at 4am

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/brisbanes-central-business-district-survived-its-first-high-tide-test-with-floodwaters-failing-to-hit-predicted-levels/story-e6freoof-1225986458412

Day Five Hundred and Seventy Eight

A day where the situation in Brisbane escalated rapidly. It started out as a normal day with the ongoing flooding in QLD. As morning progressed 30 suburbs were marked as at risk of flooding including the area we live and where I work in Fortitude Valley.

By 11am the CBD saw people packing up and leaving as areas where beginning to become inundated with water. Kate messaged me to say Valley would be next to flood. The poeple in the office on same floor as us had already gone by time we declared the office closed and evacuated home at lunchtime.

Through the afternoon the situation has escalated, the Wivenhoe Dam is releasing ever more water into the Brisbane River to allow capacity to deal with all the water which caused flooding and disaster in Toowoomba yesterday.

Current predictions show flooding will be worse than 1974 particularly on Thursday. Unfortunately we are both scheduled to fly out of Brisbane on Thursday, Kate in the morning and me in the evening. Needless to say if roads are flooded etc we wont take any risks trying to get to airport.

There's a possibility we may have the power cut off tomorrow. Watch this space or not if there's no updates!

A vid of the river across the street


Monday 10 January 2011

Day Five Hundred and Seventy Seven

It's rained pretty much constantly all night and all day. It's simply the longest I've spent anywhere with continual rain. The state of Queensland has been trounced in last month.
Its been a nightmare in Toowoomba this afternoon with flash flooding, as I write this 7 people are confirmed dead...not good

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/environment/weather/seven-believed-dead-in-toowoomba-flash-flooding-20110110-19kti.html

As for my day, a general day at work, at the evening was spent in front of TV and cutting up name cards for wedding tables.

Sunday 9 January 2011

Day Five Hundred and Seventy Six

This morning we wen to the art and craft shop for more card to make wedding stationary for the day, also went to Bunnings to get some bits for work tomorrow. I have to put up whiteboards in the office so needed some fixings. We rounded our shopping trip off with a trip to the supermarket.

The afternoon was spent giving the printer a run for it's money! We also went for a walk along the river and walked back in the rain, surprise surprise.

We spoke to folks on Skype in the evening too.

Day Five Hundred and Seventy Five

Saturday

We really didn't leave the house much today, we spent a lot of time doing wedding related stuff, working out where we are with everything.

It's difficult to get out anyway when it continually rains here in Queensland.

We did speak with Bill and Carol on the phone in sunny NSW.

Friday 7 January 2011

Day Five Hundred and Seventy Four

Friday

7 weeks til the wedding then!

Another rainy day in Brisbane, some day we might get some sunshine!

A quiet day at work, just 2 of us in the office.

A quiet night at home too.

We did find out we that randomly we get charged for our ambulance cover through our electricity bill. $109 dollars a year covers us for calling an ambulance anywhere in Australia. Its an Aussie thing having to pay for your ambulance, and a Queensland thing that it is paid for already through your electric bill....

Thursday 6 January 2011

Day Five Hundred and Seventy Three

Thursday

Walked to work this morning and got on with lots of things.

It's still raining here in Brisane, so much for the Sunshine State! Theres an interesting slideshow here

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12120239

You need the sound on....

Wednesday 5 January 2011

Day Five Hundred and Seventy Two

Usual day at work, although did get to put together our new kitchen furniture for the office which is a bit of a change. Nipped into the city at lunchtime for some more wedding card/paper.

Came home and did some final wedding invite stuff.

We had a massive storm this evening, the wind got strong and blew rain against the front of the building so that the windows leaked and it came in a bit. Was even coming through the floor form upstairs.

Will be interesting to go to work tomorrow, the street mentioned in article below is one St down from our office.

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/cars-submerged-as-heavy-rains-turns-brisbane-city-and-fortitude-valley-streets-into-streams/story-e6freon6-1225982647414

Off to bed now!

Tuesday 4 January 2011

Day Five Hundred and Seventy One

Tuesday

Back to work, office very quiet as most people are still off for Christmas breaks.

Walked home and a quiet one this evening.

Monday 3 January 2011

Day Five Hundred and Seventy

Monday

We got up and went to the Brisbane International Tennis Tournament. I had bought Kate tickets for Christmas. Was a good day, a nice venue and we saw some good tennis.





Sam Stouser




and the rains came....

We made our way home and chilled out doing very little this evening. Tomorrow its back to school for me for 6 weeks before wedding stuff all begins.
Sadly Pete Postlethwaite died today, one of my fav actors. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12106753

Day Five Hundred and Sixty Nine

Sunday Jan 2nd 2011

We got up and drove ourselves back to Brisbane. Was an interesting drive as a ute in front of us had a blow out in the fast lane. He was fishtailing all over the place at 100km an hour whilst I was trying to avoid his flying tyre debris. Thankfully he kept it upright and we were OK and drove on.

Back in Brisbane we relaxed, Kate did some food shopping. In the evening we Skyped the folks.

The evening was spent watching Spooks sent over from the UK.

Saturday 1 January 2011

Day Five Hundred and Sixty Eight

1st January 2011

A wet day, we got up after seeing in the new year on the telly in Sydney and watching the Gold Coast fireworks across the distance.

During the day we drove to coast, sat in the rain watching the rain on the beach - typical steward family affair.

Came home and then went back out for dinner along Coolangatta Beach.