Obsessed with rain

I’LL come straight out an admit it. I’m obsessed with rain. Nothing gets my attention like a story about “big rain” coming. My heart races, my breath stalls, my eyes round.

“Big rain, you say? Big rain?”

There’s nothing like it to lift your spirits. (Well, maybe news Johnathan Thurston is making a return for Queensland or a lightning bolt hit that unpleasant man in North Korea.)

Years in Sydney, I can’t remember paying any particular attention to the weather. It got a bit cold in winter. A few storms whipped in on summer afternoons and interrupted the cricket at the SCG. There were days of heavy rain that made catching trains and buses even more miserable.

But living in Toowoomba watching out for rain clouds is a serious occupation.

We all talk about it. We notice the grass is parched, that flowers wilt. We notice the dam levels and wonder what we’ll do if they keep going down.

We see reports of 100mm or 300mm falling and we know “rain envy”, wondering if we could also get 100mm. Wishing those clouds just changed course and came this way.

This week’s rain has been a blessing indeed. Of course we need more, but we’re grateful for what fell.

But the bad news is there are still parts of Queensland where the rains have not come at all for years.

Here’s hoping that summer proves the season of “big rain” for the entire state, indeed the entire country.