Nope, not my grandma, or my great aunt, or my year 2 teacher, but a cyclone. And one that is heading straight for us.

This week marks 7 years since we moved to Cairns. I think we are fortunate that this is only our second cyclone, the first being Larry. The difference here though is that Larry hit Innisfail 100km away and Olga looks like she is heading straight for Cairns.

At the moment it is only a category 2 cyclone, but it looks like she might intensify into a 3. Steve was a Category 2 and the damage bill to North Queensland was estimated to be $20M.

It’s scary, but exciting at the same time. I believe we are prepared. I will put the trampoline under the deck downstairs in the morning and possibly turn the table over on the deck and take the chairs inside. I have taken in the buckets and things in the back yard so they don’t end up in Townsville or Brisbane!

I’ll try and tweet through it! It depends how long the battery on my phone holds. I have charged the camera so will take photos if I can. Insurance is paid up. I hope I don’t have to claim.

Perhaps all I need now is sleep. I’ll try it and hope it comes!

Oh… and a pretty picture for you…

See- looks like it might hit the deck… Or else we will be flooded out!

[edit: I don't actually think that circle is the cyclone itself, but it looks purdy!]

I always loved Daylight Saving as a child. Warm evenings with gorgeous dusks that seemed to linger and discourage bedtimes. Complaining about losing an hour’s sleep, then rejoicing in March/April when you got to sleep in a bit!

I used to always laugh when people rang talkback radio complaining that daylight saving faded their curtains, or it upset the cows. In South Australia people from out West would complain that it was dark when they put their kids on the school bus in the morning.

But that was south.Up north we don’t get the dusk. It is light then it is dark. Very little in between. I suppose there is not a lot of daylight to save. We are entering the wet and traditionally the monsoons roll in in the afternoons. And it’s hot from sun-up to sundown and beyond! Actually it’s hot and sticky all day and night.

WA trialed fiddling with the clocks for a few years and then let the people decide and they said no. So we now have a country with 5 different time zones for a few months instead of 3. And it is difficult remembering who is on what time. I have to remember to ring family and friends down south earlier. I have to remember that pay TV channels are an hour earlier and that some national radio programs are too. But there are others that aren’t. And it is annoying.

I don’t think there is an answer either. Simply telling those that want it to get up an hour earlier would mean some business and organisations operated on Summer time and some didn’t. Time is time and it is how you use it that counts. Or something like that. If we up north are told that we need to spring our clocks forward then fall them back we will adjust. It’s just time after all.

There was once a tree in the front yard. I didn’t take a picture today, but here is one the afternoon of Cyclone Larry a few years back:

Note it’s not the spindly palm things in the front, but that lump of palms behind.

Now originally, this was not a palm tree. It was something else. And then the palms around it dropped their seeds and 7 trees grew around the original and killed the original. And these 7 had bits of dead stuff hanging off them, and some dead branches, and dropped fronds and were growing across the steps to the front door. I would trim them and then they would grow again and were taking over a vast proportion of the front yard.

So MIML™ and I decided to do some chopping. We trimmed the thinner fronds and then got to it with the axe.

You can see the sunlight hitting the lower fronds that hadn’t been attacked yet- yes, sunlight little fronds!

Cathartic plus! Draw your own metaphor, but cutting dead wood, making light, getting rid of parasites, swinging the axe, yeah, I’m sure you get the picture.

Next step is the chainsaw to cut it to the ground. Oh and I need to organise a rather large skip to take it all away!

Remember Romper Room? I used to want to be a Romper Room kid and would gallop (and gallop, and gallop!) around the lounge room on a broom, thinking it was a horse like they used in Romper Room… Or have  a balloon on the end of a string… or sing the Mr Doobee song!

Then they would have a snack. So I did too. But my highlight was the magic mirror.  Romper, bomper, stomper boo. Tell me, tell me, tell me, do. Magic mirror, tell me today. Have all my friends had fun at play?

Every so often she would see Fiona, but more often than not she saw my brother. I was furious. He hated the show. Miss Helena must have known and that is why she picked on him. Either that or he has a common name.

But it was the names that got me. Sometimes she would have exotic sounding names. Well names that sounded exotic in the late 70s to a white middle class girl in suburban Melbourne.

Choosing names can be an interesting experience. Imogen was going to be Imogen no matter what. It is lucky she was a girl! Jasper just came sometime during the pregnancy, even though I was convinced I was having an Eleanor!

I suppose if naming  a child is hard, then naming a cyclone must be harder. Or that is how it seems when one looks at the Bureau of Meteorology list. I mean, Hamish? Hamish is a nice, quiet child. Well the one in my kid’s class is!

Just look at the list though. Cyclone Imogen and Jasper I can cope with! Cyclone Bruce- yep, that’s an aussie cyclone! Even Cyclone Blanche! But Cyclone Kirrily, Savannah, Tatjana, Odette or Verdun?

I vote TC Hamish should have been called TC Habakkuk. I mean, why not?

It is looking a little ominous here. Hamish is on its way it would seem. Quite a bit of rain and a bit of a breeze. Must ring and check the insurance is up to date…

Tonight MIML™ and I managed to catch our 100th canetoad for the year. So we had a bit of a party to celebrate, complete with ribbons and a cup of tea!

Little Dot surveying her kingdom prior to execution… Lucky for her she got a few more minutes outside the freezer so photos could be taken to commemorate the occasion. We are still waiting on the telegram from Regina QEII.

Not sure how many we will catch for the year. I know we tend to get less in the cooler months, but I still wonder if we will reach 500. If we do we will have a huge party with party food- toad in the hole, toad in the pond and no doubt some cocktail invented for the occasion. Suggestions?

Oh and no canetoads were harmed in the filming… But they are in the freezer (or garbage depending on when you are viewing this!) now!

We moved up north 5 years ago.  Actually it has been 5 years and 3 weeks now. Not that I’m counting!

This wet season has been particularly wet. Over 12 inches of rain so far this February. The roads south are cut and supermarkets have either brought supplies in by barge or plane. Supermarket shelves are still pretty bare. It would appear the milk from dairy famers in this area goes south before coming up here again. It shouldn’t surprise me as it is usually cheaper to buy oranges from North and South America than local ones.

We even had our intertubes cut off this week. We have only one cable coming up here and it was flushed away. Can anyone spell monopoly? Apparently they were able to divert until they can fix the cable, or find it or something, but still…

But instead of googling ark plans (how big is a cubit after all?) and working out if I could put a generator in with a server and satellite intertube access…

When we moved here I had high hopes of growing my own bananas. Must do that. But Bunnings doesn’t sell banana plants. I have got coffee and japoticaba growing though…When I moved into this house 3 years ago I also thought it would be cool to put a fish pond in. That is in the pipeline…

One of my preparations for the fish pond has been toad eradication. We are humane… MIML™ and I have it down to a fine art. He comes over in the evenings. He has one plastic bag. I have another. We both have torches. We spot the buggers, I catch them with one bag, we make sure they are toads and then they go into MIML™s bag. Again we place them in a rather large vase and again confirm they are toads before bagging them again and placing them in the deep freeze. It is the most humane way to kill them. They then go out with the rubbish on Fridays.

So far this year we have frozen 57 of the buggers. And also seen more frogs in the yard. With this rain and soft ground, and the fact that the old septic has caved in, we are planning on putting in a frog pond next weekend. Watch this space!

Oh and for those wondering… Here are some snaps…

Toading in the rain!

A rather large one! All hail the hypnotoad!

It is ironic though. We are cut off from the world by floods. Melbourne has had its hottest day ever (46º!) and they are battling bushfires. And we can’t even beat New Zealand in the cricket…

I have lived in Cairns for nearly 6 years. How time flies when one is, er not watching a pot or something.

Early on I learnt about the Cairns-Townsville rivalry. Each city seems to think that it is the capital of the Far North. Townsville used to always have the spot on the Australian Weather map, but Cairns stole it because it has more tourists.

Even locals talk with disdain about visiting Townsville (aka Brownsville). When I told colleagues I was visiting Townsville this weekend I was usually asked why. When I explained it was for MIML™ to sit his AMC exam it was then ok- I had a reason. I was basically told that one would not go to Townsville for pleasure.

Even yesterday when MIML™ was sitting his exam and I had time to explore local shopkeepers asked me why on earth I was visiting Townsville. I was given lectured to by one about how much more cultured Cairns is and how Cairns people are less redneck. Ok… if they insist…

But my impressions were different. Townsville is a gorgeous city. It has old buildings. It has the best coffee I have tasted in a while. It has more Irish pubs than the rest of Australia put together (Well I think I saw 7!) and it has a bottle shop on every corner, with one or two within every block.

Apart from getting lost after relying on my jebusPhone’s maps, I found it a pretty easy city to navigate. There are so many shopping malls and whilst there is no Myer, Myer is meant to be moving there in the next few years.

The feature that got me the most though was The Strand. Yes, The Cairns Esplanade is lovely, but The Strand is something else. It has a beach! It has lovely cafés with homemade cakes and ice-creams. It has views over the harbour at night with lights. Last night the moon was almost full and MIML™ was holding my hand as we walked and I melted. Now it was warm but the company and the scenery was superb- pretty magical in fact!

I am rather taken by the place. Could I live there? I don’t know. Perhaps not with everyone dissing it so much. We do hope to go back, not for more exams, but to take the kids and explore it a little more.

I am hoping my thumbs have had some sort of metamorphosis. They have never been particularly green, but I am hoping that they may still help the plants purchased today thrive.

MIML™, the kids and I tripped it along to Bunnings to get a new pump for the water feature, a lime tree for a lonely pot and some potting mix. We came away with the pump, 2 pots, lime tree, coffee (arabica bean) tree, japoticaba tree (which MIML™ has just found may take several years to fruit!), parsley, coriander, chives and mint. It is all potted and the pump is working. I am waiting patiently for the coffee to fruit so I can roast my own beans in a popcorn maker!

Now to remember to water them every day, and to play classical music to them, and talk to them, and well… let’s hope they survive and thrive! Am still not sure about gardening in the tropics. I know you are meant to grow tomatoes and other ‘Summer’ veggies over Winter… Will see how we go with the herbs. If all else fails I will plant lots of lemon grass, Thai basil and the like. Now to find those chilli seeds I have been meaning to germinate…

We have a guest staying from New Zealand this week whilst he attends a conference. Yesterday, we took advantage of Jasper playing footy at Trinity Beach to visit the beach for a paddle. The stinger nets are still out so even paddling was a little risky, but the water was warmish and the kids had fun.

I&J (the fish fingers as I dub them) have their moments, as do any sister and brother, but on the whole get along well. I do wonder however, if this photo could be captioned with them ganging up on their mother (I’ll hold her hand and you tickle her until she falls over in the water) or Imogen telling Jasper furfies (Yeah and see the sharks swim right up here…) or just a bit of bonding. I know which one I’ll go with!

I have always said the best time to visit Cairns is between May and October. Looks like the season has changed early this year though.

Humidity has lessened and the temperature has dropped. And I can still sit out on the deck and type away in a strappy sun dress. Don’t get me wrong, I adore Winter and do miss certain aspects like blowing steam out of your mouth or snuggling up in front of a fire. Oh and I love being all rugged up in my cape with a scarf and a woolly hat with the cold air blowing against my face. Memories of walking dogs through fields in Jersey in the Channel Islands with my Aunt and Uncle in January where frosts hung around until well after lunch flood back as if it were yesterday and not 17 and then 12 years ago!

I don’t know if the wet is really over yet. I see showers forecast for the next couple of days. Don’t get me wrong, I do love the rain, but I also love the long stretches of milder days full of sunshine where you do need a doona at night, even if the ceiling fan is still on and sometimes you even get to wear long sleeves…

So if you are planning on visiting then any time from now til about Grand Final weekend (Last in September for non sporting people!) is a great time to come. Just give me some notice so I can prepare the guest quarters/dungeon/downstairs room etc!