"Is it wet enough for you?"

Sorry for the lack of posts during the week.  Been too tired to read my RSS feeds let alone scribe any posts of my own.  New job and all...

Adding to the excitement of my new job was the wild and woolly weather in Melbourne during the week.  Is there another place on the face of the Earth that is like Melbourne when it comes to weather?  Locals often joke that we can have four seasons in one day, but it was no joke this week.

On Wednesday it was hot, 36C in fact.  Then on Thursday it was cold and wet. Very wet.  We had the highest day of rainfall since records started 156 years ago.  The storm caused all kinds of chaos and damage, the Yarra River become a raging torrent, 100 year old trees were uprooted and metropolitan roads were turned into rivers.

Global Warming, the greenhouse effect, the hole in the ozone layer, the burning of fossil fuels, who knows what to blame for such odd behaviour of mother nature.

Equally bewildering is what is to blame for the strange behaviour of people when it rains.  Or more to the point, the conversational skills of people. Everyone becomes a meteorologist, or expects that the person they are talking to is:

• "Wonder were it came from?"
• "Gee, is it wet enough for you?"
• "Nice weather we are having!"
• "This would be great if I were a duck."

Why do we revert to such banal crap when it comes to the weather?  I often felt like responding:

• "The rain is coming from the sky, you dill"
• "No actually, it isn't.  I like it wetter."
• "Um.  No it isn't.  It' would be "nice" if it was mild and sunny."
• "How do you know ducks think that such a storm-battering is great?"

But then people would think I was a smart arse, so I just smile and nod.

Anyway, I was glad when it stopped raining, if for no other reason than conversations could return to normal!