Completely Devastated

You may have heard by now that the floods that have plagued Queensland for the past 19 days reached Toowoomba.

It is really very strange - after all we are located on the top of a mountain. But the scenes are like something out of a far flung South American village, not the 2nd largest inland city in Australia.

Our house is up on a hill, but the gullies and creeks all around us were really raging torrents.

So strange.

My boy is stuck in Roma, he was out for a one day course - and it looks as though he may be stuck out there for the next 2 weeks.

And Killarney is underwater again. My lovely sister and her boy Paul are up for another clean up, and the river peaked at 7.2 metres which is higher than the 2008 floods.

And when I see the images of people on the television - and they have lost their homes, they look somehow..... smaller.

I have been reading the lovely Architecture of Happiness by Alan de Bottion.

He says that what makes a building truly beautiful (in an indivduals eyes) is that the building (and the personal belongings therein) is a reflection of that individuals true selves.

The place where the individual can be the person that they ultimately see themselves to be.

So - when you lose your home you truly do lose part of yourself. You would lose that thing, that place that truly defines who you are.

So - whilst it is true that "They are only belongings - they are replaceable", the fact that each thing you have lost each thing that has been chosen by you, to be kept and treasured, to remind your self of who you truly are, also deserves to be mourned.

You will never be the same again.

(If you have any worries about your friends and family in the Queensland Floods - please contact the flood hotline 1300 993 191)