Typically the winter is the rainy season here in Perth. I think over half of our rain comes during this time of year. So far this year, though, we’ve had quite a bit of rain through the late summer and autumn. In fact the only month that seems to have been spared was June, which was unseasonably dry this year.

The past few weeks we’ve had rain almost every day. Well, at least a forecast of rain and some drizzle most days. It’s rained so much there are lakes within some of the park lands around here. A couple years ago this was a problem due to blocked sewage drains plus rain. I don’t think the drains are particularly blocked now but the rains have continued.

Last week we had a nasty storm that brought heavy rain and thunder and lightning one morning. I will point out that thunderstorms really aren’t all that common here although they aren’t a rarity either. It’s just a lot less than I used to experience while living in North Carolina during the summer. Anyway, that storm came along and the power went out that morning. The lightning never even hit all that close to us so I am surprised we had an outage. I will also point out that we often go a year or more without a power outage here. Well I guess that was the case when we first moved in here but it’s probably a bit more often now. Still it’s pretty rare. Initially I didn’t realise the power was out. I had woken up and I realised my Apple watch needed a charge so I connected it to the charger. I heard the usual ping sound once it connected. Then I connected my phone to its charger and there was no ping. I thought something had happened to the power outlet (which would have been bad since it was only put in last year). Still nothing. I went out to the living room to try it in a different location. I went to turn on the light and nothing happened. A light bulb went off in my head…lol.

The power was out for about an hour and then all was well, or so I thought. I don’t know whether it was an issue from the start or not, but our router/modem seems to have died soon after the power returned. Died as in it wouldn’t power up at all. After an exchange of a few text messages with the Scientist, I went out in search of a new router/modem. The funny part of this is that we were in the shop a couple days before that and the Scientist had spotted one that he said he planned on getting when we next needed one. The expectation, of course, was this was not going to be any time in the immediate future. So this turned out to be the means of getting that really good one sooner than later. It is a much pricier model than the previous one but does have a few bells and whistles that hopefully will make up for it. Also we had a gift card for a retailer that sells these and I was able to reduce the price by $154, which still left it expensive but less so than it started out to be. The new model has been going pretty well so far. I did have a couple problems connecting my iPad at first, until I connected ot the 5G network instead of the usual one. Since then I’ve not had any issues at all.

Meanwhile, there is still a bit of rain in the forecast but I see a break in precipitation for the coming weekend. I’m looking forward to a bit of clearer weather for a few days as we finish up our winter season here. We did have a lovely sunny day last Thursday but it’s not been very nice since then. And before we know it, we will be in spring and the allergy season should ramp up. I suspect the only reason it hasn’t right now is the rains washing off the pollen.

And on a slightly related note, I heard on the radio today that Australia may be in its worst flu season ever recorded. It has been a terrible winter for flu around here. Almost everyone I know has been struck down at some point. I am still not sure that we had the flu here back in June. Whatever it was was pretty nasty but it didn’t include fever and it didn’t include the usual aches and pains that come with flu usually. That reminds me of something else I heard on the radio today at the same time. There was a discussion of the difference between a cold and flu and the doctor they were talking to would say that if you have to ask that question you probably have never had the flu. That reminded me of my first experience of flu when I was a freshman in college. It was February and pretty much everyone else on my floor of the dorm had had it before I finally succumbed. And yes, it was like nothing I’d ever had before and was quite memorable. What I had this year wasn’t at all like that and yet it was just as awful and probably longer lasting. So my thought it was it could have been a totally different type of flu than I had in the past or it was a random, but nasty, upper respiratory infection. One last thing to take away from the interview today was that it was still a good idea to do a flu vaccination so maybe I will see about doing that.