Well, this week has been unlike any other in my life, and one that I never want to see again. Aussie day weekend brought us storms, torrential rain, tornadoes and the biggest flood in Bundaberg's history! I will talk more about the flood in a separate post, but for now I just wanted to quickly update my blog with where I am at with my list.
Firstly, very sadly, due to the floods the dance classes I was super excited about starting (#8 on the list) have been postponed until further notice. The lady that owns the dance academy also owned a local hairdressing salon that has been devstated by the floods, aswell as losing two halls that were used for classes. My thoughts are with her and the thousands of others effected. Hopefully classes can start again soon - I will keep you posted!
Number 28 on my list was to learn how to play a harmonica! I'm sure you are asking yourself why. Well, I LOVE to learn new things. I also love music. When I decided I wanted to learn something completely different, it seemed like a logical choice to learn how to play an instrument! Don't you think!? ;) I love acoustic/soul/blues and just adore the sound of the harmonica, plus I thought it would be really easy - I quickly realised it wasn't! I received my harmonica in the post on 22/01/13 after ordering from an online music shop. I was so excited to get it and quickly started scouring you tube and google for some very basic lessons.
The hardest part is getting your mouth in the right position to blow the air into the holes properly and trying to feel the holes so you don't have to pull it away to look at the little engraved numbers. It's definitely going to take a lot of practice! The first song I am learning to play is Somewhere Over the Rainbow - one of my all time fav songs. I will write about my progress another time ;)
Due to the very unfortunate circumstances in Bundaberg lately (with the floods) I have actually been able to tick two more items off my list. Number 22 - help a stranger, and number 29 - encounter a new animal. Before the main flooding in town occurred, we received a LOT of rain! At the time we were at our friends place in Moore Park (about 15 min out of town) celebrating Aussie day. Their place tends to flood if we have a couple of days of heavy rain, and by that afternoon their whole road was well and truely flooding. Throughout that night we got hammered by a huge storm and damaging winds, waking to find their property was knee deep in water. When we were walking between the shed and house (moving some items) hubby spotted a furry creature struggling in the water. Without thinking too much, he quickly plucked it to safety! I had no idea what it was, but soon was told it was a bandicoot! I had never seen one before and instantly fell in love. It was very gentle and placid and seemed almost grateful to have been saved.
Thanks to our friends, and hubby willing the little guy to survive, we were able to keep him in a blanket tucked in an old bookshelf under the house that was safe from the rising water. He stayed there for 2 days and nights before venturing back out on his own. He was soooo cute! Encounter a new animal - tick!
Number 22 on my list was to help a stranger. When I added this to my list, I had no idea how I was going to do it, but I wanted it to be good. Little did I know we were about to find ourselves in a declared state of emergency right here in Bundaberg. As soon as we were able to get home (after being stuck on the wrong side of the bridge for 6 days) I had to do something to help - as did thousands of others. We spent Friday helping one of our best friends gut and clean their home after the flood waters swallowed it up. On Saturday I was exhausted! I have a dodgyback and after heavy lifting and scrubbing the day before, it was not very happy with me :/ Instead of helping a stanger clean their home, I decided to help lots of strangers! I went to the supermarket and then got to work (with help from my best friend) making over 100 lunch packs with cold drinks. I had decided I would go around East Bundaberg handing out food and drinks to those busy cleaning out their homes - many of which had lost everything! An absolutely devastating sight I must say :( My friend Kylie came along to help me and we just couldn't believe some of what we saw. Despite how many of the people we visited that day must have felt, they were all extremely grateful for our gesture and were smiling and appreciative of us coming by. It was very heart warming.
The next day we headed back over north to take our mate his clothes we had saved and washed from the flood, plus take some supplies over. By this stage a lot of people were busy busy making food to take over for residents and helpers. I was originally going to take more lunch packs over to hand out also but decided to drop it off to one of the local churches that was distributing it instead. Rather than taking the food over, I made up some essential suplies packs including things like toothpaste, deoderant, soap, etc for a few people that had lost everything. I hope it provided them with one less thing to worry about in that moment... Help a stranger - tick!
So, after a big week (and ticking off a few things from my list) I am looking forward to a little less eventful weekend this weekend! We personally weren't directly effected by the flood or storms and we are so very very grateful for that. Flood waters were approx 2-3 blocks from our home and a tornado whipped past about 2 blocks on the opposite side. Unfortunately thousands of others weren't so lucky, including a number of people we know. Our hearts and thoughts are with everyone in our community at this time. It's going to take a long time, but Bundy will be back on it's feet soon enough. Make sure you stay safe and tell your loved ones exactly how special they are to you xx.
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