"....You're so English...."

That ride home from work earlier this evening surely has to be the biggest storm that I ever been caught in. I was finishing up at work today, when one of the guys mentioned that there was meant to be a big storm making it's way to Brisbane. I checked out the window, and sure enough there was a big dark grey cloud in the sky in the not-too-distant horizon.
"Yeah, that'll probably be here in about 30/45 minutes"
"Right well on that note I'm leaving now"
I headed off on my bike, and within being outside for 5 seconds I could see that this cloud was way bigger than I first realised when I was inside, and that it was gonna take me some miracle to get home before the rain got me!
I'd say I got half the way home before I realised that I was under the cloud, and then about two thirds of the way home before a big gush of wind pushed me quite far out into the road from outta nowhere.
"Right time for me to get onto the pavement" I thought. As I got on the pavement I could hear that the rain was already clearly (really clearly) hitting the Brisbane River on my near left. But this rain sounded heavy, I mean really heavy. Within about 15 seconds of me getting on the pavement, the heavens opened and the rain really did pour down.....and within about 10 seconds of that, the hail started. Now I've been in hail before, and if it catches you right, it can kinda hurt a tiny bit for about half a second, when I saw this hail, the first thing that came to my head was "SHELTER, I need shelter, this is like a scene out of "The day after tomorrow"". I honestly don't know which description is best here, whether to compare these chunks of ice failing from the sky with "small tennis balls" or "large golf balls"? All I know is that these hurt, and I actually have "paintball" style bruises on my hand and foot...I've never been more happy to find a bus stop to take cover.
The hail only lasted less than 5 minutes, but the downpour that followed was epic. I changed my shoes (which in hindsight seems pointless now) and put my rain coat on over my bag and carried on my venture home. This rain was huge, but quick, the water from the road was running into the river...through the pavement that I was riding on. With the puddles (and some of them were pretty deep) and all the foliage and branches that had recently found it's way to the ground, at times I had a real hard time judging where the pavement and road met. The cars driving passed my were splashing huge puddles all over me, I was constantly spitting out rain water. But it was irrelevant by this point, I was already drench though, so it just became fun. Not gonna lie, I was pretty happy to get home though, although there was a part of me that wanted to go out and play in the rain again, the 10 year old in me that used to love it when it proper chucked down on a Saturday, so Matt, Russ and I would get our shin pads and studs on and go play football on the cricket pitches down the Rodaway, just to slide tackle each other....rain and mad and football = FUN! The puddles yesterday were huge, they were canyons!

The hailstones at our house...

...they were much bigger than this whilst they were falling from the sky.

..which was nothing compared to other roads

Down our road...

Hehe, one of my small bruises from the stones, on my hand

..And the hole in our bathroom ceiling

And the moral of that story is: I really wanted something to write about in this post, then an epic 'house wrecking" storm comes along! But we were really lucky here, only having that one ceiling hole (which we've now taped up as a temporary fix), as I know some of you have experienced a lot worse, smashed windows and windscreens, etc.

So that was tonight. Yesterday was 6 months since I left England, meaning that yesterday was also 4 months since we arrived in Brisbane and Australia. And nearly a month since I last wrote in here. And in this last month our house has lost a house mate in Chris, but acquired a new pet, and several new baby fish, I have acquired a new toy (after not much persuasion). I also learnt that Chris (my now ex-housemate) a Kiwi, travelled to and worked in England once, and not only did he live in Southampton, but he lived in Botley, the town next to my home town, and he obviously used to drink down the Railway, and we worked out on the time scales that I probably would have served him at some point, as I was working behind the bar at the Railway, the same time that he was working at Fairthorne Manor. But as it's taken me so long to get something on here (again), I think I will just do a photo dump, whilst adding just a little text.

Just taking your pig for a walk along the beach...

..Before heading to Natural Bridge, in Springbrook National Park...

...And laying with some cowwwaaaeerrrr, they're Bulls

"You realise Halloween was last week!"....

At Amber's (late) Halloween Party

End of the night/beginning of Sunday

At least it gave us a Friday off of work!

...And walking through the city at 5am that Friday was well peaceful!

I spent Thursday night at Terry's house party, then Sandra and I ended up spending the Friday in the city, and it was pretty chilled cos no one was really here, except a load of police...no jay walking for me....even though all the roads were closed. We did spend some time in the casino and both came out quids up! Then we spent the rest of the weekend up at Bribie Island visiting Finn and Alice, and Katie, on their temporary house boat.

Sleeping quarters

Sunset on the Saturday

...And the boat we hired between the 5 of us on the Sunday

The Glass House Mountains

And last weekend, with Thundamentals, at the Showgrounds..

...followed the awesome Hilltop Hoods...awesome set!...

..Before we rushed off to Andromeda festival, an overpriced Doof, but still a great laugh....and Rosie broke her nose!

I finished off my long weekend going to see The Godfather on the big screen, with Sandra and Kirra...next Monday is The Godfather 2 (aka the film I was named after (for lack of a better way of wording that sentence)).

Last night at an Open Mic Night, with Terry's mates playing an awesome set!

I am going to go off topic here but I definitely have a vendetta against the Queensland police. Note how I saw "Queensland police" and not "Australian police", I haven't been in other Australian states long enough to comment. My problem with the police here (and I had this vendetta last time I was here, this isn't new, just rekindled) is that it doesn't feel like they police to make Queensland a safer place, it feels more like they police to catch you out and collect revenue. For starters, in England, they warn you of approaching speed cameras as they want you to slow down in that area, in Queensland the police will hide on a corner, wait until you've unknowingly sped past them and then later on that month you will get a ticket with a fine through your post...too late, the damage/"crime" is done.
"Jay-walking", is another example, this is a term we don't have in England, I feel you should use your own common sense to know when to cross a road here. Basically law states that if the man is red then you can't cross the road, and if the man's green then you can...so far that makes sense....but the man doesn't go off automatically and if you miss pushing the button by one second then you have to wait a full cycle again, which at some crossings can be a long time...but that's not the worse part, that's just annoying and time consuming, this next point is unsafe, if/when the man is green, there's nothing to stop cars and trucks turning into the road you're crossing. Honestly sometimes it is way safer to cross the road when the man is red...but this is breaking the law, and can lead to a fine. I think it encourages people to do the wrong thing out of annoyance, which sometimes puts them in more danger, but more to the point, it makes people more likely to slip up in front of the police so that they can fine you!
Also, why would you fine someone for not wearing a helmet when riding their bicycle, if you don't wanna wear one that's your choice...why is it a fine!? You don't need to wear one whilst you're on a skateboard.....huh!?...why not!?...cos it's safer than a bike!?!?....surely not!
These are just a few examples that I could use. Just setting small pointless traps to build the revenue!

It's a grumble, but I think seeing these things from an outsider's point of view just seems strange to me!

OK, now that's my grumble out of the way, here's Jeff's new pet:

This is Hazel, and she now lives with us, and she must be about 12 weeks old now...

...and she poos and wees everywhere, and licks my legs first thing every morning. Yes she is cute, but I am yet to make friends with her (I'm also all too aware that I'm the only one whom feels like this....)

And this is my new toy....this I am friends with:

So after a few weeks of planning, I finally told Sandra earlier tonight that when she gets home from work tomorrow she needs to pack some stuff for the beach and enough stuff to be away for most of Saturday, Saturday night and Sunday, and that's all she knows! So that's all that you will know for now...

Have a great weekend guys!