... and then the rains came.

My suburb awash at about 11am....

Brisbane was lashed by a series of.... rather expected storms, yesterday afternoon. I say rather expected, because the forecast for the entire week had been for severe storms on Saturday. However, many of the locals have since vented their collective and self-righteous spleens because the B.O.M. hadn't sent them SMS storm warnings for the first severe session in the afternoon.

They most certainly issued warnings for the latter - and much more prolonged storm.

As the second storm approached, I set up my camera on the front deck to take a series of long exposures - in the hope of capturing some lightening. It missed a couple of dramatic moments unfortunately, but it did document the advancing of the storm quite effectively.

Take that... Lighting pole at the Rugby field!

A little after 9pm however, the strongest part of the storm hit. This forced me to quickly rush outside and grab my camera gear. As I retreated inside and quickly shut the windows to stop the now horizontal rain from coming in, the power died. Having anticipated this happening, there were already candles burning throughout the house. I also had been charging my mobile phone to make sure I still had contact with the rest of the world in the eventuality of the power failure.

So, what does one do when the power goes down?

You typecast of course!

 

The suburb dived into an eerie silence and darkness as the power went out. But the sky kept the world alight at night with lightening strikes.

 

Blog entry sitting on my typewriter - waiting to be scanned when the power came back on.

And then it was over....

Actually, not quite.

By the next morning I was awoken by the rumble of thunder once again rolling across the landscape. 

And then the third storm hit....

Not long after the storm subsided, another SMS warning arrived from the BOM warning us of the same kind of conditions that had been predicted the night before. By about mid-day the 4th (or was it 5th?) storm crashed over the city, once again turning streets to rivers.

 EDIT:

It is now 5:30pm, and from my front deck I can see another front coming up from the south of Brisbane. The BOM has issued another severe weather SMS warning.


EDIT 2:

A space to write my own....

Yeah... a break from the Charleville trip for a bit.

I was happy to see the Strikethru blog suddenly (briefly) power up again and get the typosphere buzzing. I have to say, that blog was one of the blogs that inspired me to start my own typewriter/writer blog.

Last week when they challenged everyone to talk about what their ultimate writing shed/shack would be like, I found my imagination wandering again.

Here's the two Strikethru blogs about the subject - for those who haven't seen it. They're short, so feel free to brush up on them, but come back!

Typewriter shed
Typewriter shack envisioned

So what did I come up with?

Well, I started working more from the inside out, so I'll just put my sketches up on here for everyone to have a bit of a sticky at.

 I found recently that a shorter semi-lounge armchair, and a 'just right' height side table felt almost perfect for me to write at comfortably. Probably not great for my back long term, but casual writing seems to flow on this kind of set up. Hence the setup with the chair and the typewriter.

But I need a desk for the long slog. I've positioned a couple of lamps on either side of the desk, and a piano sconce on the wall behind it to give me that nice candle lit glow I sometimes just want.

To the right, a couple of pin-boards to corkboard organize up projects. And naturally, an indoor plant - at least one, along with a nice chunk of inspirational reading on a bookshelf. (which might also hold a couple of typewriters - so I can write on what I feel like on the day.

Oh yeah... and a sun-light through the ceiling above the desk. Possibly able to be popped open to let hot air out of the room.

Small lounge at the back corner and a second window off to my right. French doors naturally.

Actually, these doors hold a secondary purpose. They allow me to turn both the chair and the side table around, and point them out the door. If it is a nice day and I'd rather be facing into the breeze, sticking the table outside the door and sitting inside still in the shade, would be perfect.

The back left hand corner will probably need to accommodate a fan from time to time.

Yep... That was a laptop on the desk back up there. My workflow often requires me to need a tool like that, even if I usually just use my iPad these days. But a solar panel on the roof, and some strategic low-power LED lighting will make this the perfect little spot to sink a few coldies after the sun goes down.

Letting a couple of plants creep up the sides - maybe grape vines - would probably take a good chunck of the heat from the Australian summer sun from the building.


So that's it folks. I hope you enjoyed my ideas. They're only the beginning, and if I ever get the chance to make myself a shack, I'm sure I'll come up with something even more elaborate. But these represent a few key things that I'd like to have.