First things first...

Lola and the Millennium Possum. And -- snow?!

Snow? In South Australia? Well, okay ... not actually snow. In fact, we had one of the biggest thunderstorms of recent years, got dumped on with ice -- and the July day was cold enough for the hail to "lay," or "stick" for almost an hour. Here's the view from the front door, across the corner of the garden, to where Dave's van and Jen's car are apparently sitting in a layer of snow, with a snowy street right behind them! What's so weird about this is that four days before we were out for a hike along the banks of the Onkaparinga River in this kind of weather:

Onkaparinga River, July 7th -- four days ago...

Well, the fair city of Adelaide, South Australia, is renowned for offering all four seasons in a single day. Even so, hail so think it looks like snow in the suburbs is unusual enough to blog about. In fact, it did actually snow on Mount Lofty today, which is so unusual, it was featured on the News on TV. 

All of which seems like a good place to start a personal blog. 

"First things first..." -- I guess this blog is mostly for me; a way of charting my path through a difficult "today" and into a "tomorrow" I hope to find, or build, or orchestrate. Three clichés that got to be clichés by being absolutely correct: nothing is ever easy ... good things are always worked hard for ... the best things are a) worth waiting for and, b) usually saved till last. So I'll start somewhere and keep moving forward; and this blog will at least help me chart where I've been, if not where I'm going.

Zolie in the plum tree -- in better weather

Mark the date of starting: Tuesday, July 12, on a stormy evening with Mom just home out of the hospital (still suffering pneumonia), Zolie still freaked out after the thunder and parked on Dave's lap as he reads up on the Tour de France and looks forward to tonight's stage (which is leaving Spain and heading back into France), Mike just putting finishing touches to another short story, and a laptop called Pandora that seems to be having a hernia.

Good place to begin!