Flooded

Torrential rain for over 24 hours came close to flooding our home.  On going to bed last night the water was lapping at the bottom of three steps leading to our back door... lapping at bottom of second step on arising this morning!!  We were lucky.  Many St.Kilda residents were flooded out of their homes.
St.Kilda is built on reclaimed land.  When my mother attended boarding school here in Dunedin there were only a few homes built on solid rock around the periphery of swampy land that went from upper harbour through to the coast. Over the years the swampy ground was reclaimed with harbour dredgings and rock from nearby excavations.
Today is thursday and Mother had an appointment at her hairdressers.  As a good portion of the driveway was under water I had to wade out to the garage to take car onto road so that mother could keep her feet dry.  Bloody cold water I can assure you but I remember feeling more alive than I had in months.
(looking back I realise that I was showing signs of being quite ill then and it is a wonder that I did not catch pneumonia)