I live in Melbourne....the Australian one. Recently though I have been hearing tales of Frances (the hurricane that is about to batter our friends in the 'other' Melbourne - the Florida US one ). Families are boarding up and batting down and evacuating, taking their valuables and most cherished items to safer places. This got me to thinking....
I am fortunate I guess that here in Australia, cyclones (hurricanes), earthquakes, tidal waves and other natural weather-related disasters are few and far between... I have never experienced an earthquake, or a cyclone, the worst I can remember is walking out my back door to find my back yard underwater. I remember Cyclone Tracey which battered Darwin (NT) one Christmas Eve in the seventies and a shocking earthquake in Newcastle (NSW) in the nineties, people might say I am lucky. I have never had to evacuate, or choose what is most important to take with me.
So this past few days I have been considering - what IS so important to me that I would have to pack it up and take it with me if there was a necessity to evacuate my home? After me and my son and clothes, etc, the list is a bit like this and not in any particular order...
- Photos
- Passports and other personal papers
- Banking and Insurance stuff
- Some Antique china that was a gift from my mother
- A box I keep my son's "treasures" in you know hospital birth stuff, the newspaper from when he was born, special gifts, special schoolwork prizes, etc
- Scruffy and Pegasus ( my son's two favourite toys) and probably a game boy or similar to keep him amused.
Then there is the "if there is time" list:
- my finished and framed needlework
- my important stash items
- Liam's other important to him 'stuff'
A bit selfish you might say.....but I wouldn't care if I had to live in a tent as long as I could stitch I would be stress free about it.
Here in Aus we are experiencing another kind of weather disaster. Drought. And although we have had substantial rain lately, it doesn't seem to be falling in the right spots! Wheat farmers at the moment say if there is no rain soon - there will be no crop this year...
Funny how we moan and groan when we have a couple of days of rain... We are never happy.
Until next time.....
T
