A morning walk around this man-made lake in Canberra that was built in 1987 to trap sediment for the Murrumbidgee River, is a picturesque start to any day.

All along the east coast of Australia, there has been a lot of rain. Torrential rain resulting in flooding and entire towns cut off. I’ve never heard of it being as bad as this ever.

This morning I walked around half the lake and saw the debris of the flooding and there was water and mud everywhere. The water level is high. The air feels damp and cool and usually, at this time of year, especially in Canberra where it should be dry and in the high 30s, it’s wet and the sunshine (when it comes out) is weak.

More thunder and lightening and more torrential rain is expected over the week.

Many times I catch myself thinking how glad I am to have reconfigured our drainage systems, laid down more pipes, added pumps around the house to remove water. It was pure luck and good timing to have done this especially when the Bureau of Meteorology was focused more on extreme heat and bushfires and it seems we have gone the opposite. If we hadn’t sorted our drainage, our house would have been entirely flooded by now (and we aren’t even on a flood plain)!

I’m getting a bit over this weather to be honest.

Our conversations with people are only about this now.

“What climate change?” they wryly joke. “We’re in the thick of it. This is it. It’ll get worse.”