Despite having lived here over a year already, I'm still not completely used to the weather. Overall, it's quite nice, but it's full of violent surprises. For instance, last summer we went for a barbecue on the beach, and we were hailed out......Hailed Out! In the middle of summer! And these were decent sized hailstones too.

I'm used to mellow rainy weather where it pretty much rains non-stop for a day or even a couple of days, a nice steady downpour. Here, it gushes down in torrents for about five or ten minutes and then next thing you know, the sun in shining, followed by more cats and dogs a few minutes after that. We can see rainbows nearly every day it rains, sometimes double and triple rainbows. I think I can count the number of rainbows I'd seen before coming to Australia on the fingers of one hand.

We've had a very wet start to our winter, which is good, 'cause there's been a drought and water shortages are a big deal. So we're counting our blessings that when it rains, it truly does pour.