Ex-cyclone Oswald brought torrential rain yesterday, and widespread power failures across South-East Queensland. (It is much, much worse further North but we live in SEQ so this is personal experience.) We have had no power since yesterday evening, it is not likely to be restored before tomorrow afternoon at the earliest, and a major flood warning is in place for the Brisbane River for tomorrow and Wed, where major releases from Wivenhoe dam once again coincide with high tides. (A bit of déjà vu, that.)

We got up farcically early on a Bank Holiday to stock up on emergency supplies, as, it turned out, did everybody else. Torches, flashlights, LED lanterns, bottled water and petrol were all in short supply.

We drove carefully and sensibly past flooded roads and fallen trees.

Having (eventually) obtained everything we might need for two days without power, we returned home to prepare for the forecast thunderstorms and floods. This included charging our mobiles. with a newly-acquired car charger, and helping a neighbour take down a precarious tree in a controlled manner. Then we went to look at the river just outside our house.

This much space before the road floods.

Our house is fairly high up over a creek. High enough, we hope.

Drinking wine by candlelight. Best thing to do while the power is out, courtesy of Cyclone Oswald.

It’s been raining heavily all through the Australia Day long weekend – a consequence of being on the edges of Cyclone Oswald. Even the birds are seeking shelter wherever they can. In this case, on our deck.

I’m on a roll with native hawks. Here’s a picture from this afternoon.

Our house is in an awesome spot for wildlife-spotting. This Pacific Baza has been a cooperative model before. Today, I watched it hunting, and managed to get a few shots of the hawk with its prey. Not quite sure what the prey is — a mouse? A small bird? It flew away pretty quickly, presumably to enjoy its dinner without a clicking lens in the vicinity.

Home-made ice cream. The only thing to do in 36C heat.

Living in a rainforest (sort of) means the prevailing colour in the environment is, well, green. Many lush shades of green, especially after rain. Today I went hunting for other colours. It’s the middle of a hot summer, and there are not many flowers around. Still, this is what I found trying to grow along the river.

I also found a bright orange streetlight which was doing its best to outshine the midday sun. Through Liveview on my camera (with a telephoto lens focussed on a flower nearby), it looked at first like an unusually orange moon so I took a picture. Apologies for the cheesy post-processing but I couldn’t resist.

This is a macro shot of a tomato flower from my container garden, taken with a 20mm extension tube on a 50mm prime lens, using my new gorillapod (a kind of tripod).

Wonton soup with home-made wontons, and home-grown bok choi and lemongrass.