It wouldn't be a proper year in Melbourne without some crazy rain, and this weekend looks to be it. It was so bad today that the head of my area came around telling everyone to go home, because we all know that if it isn't a perfect 25-degree day, the public transport system falls over.
The last time we had a big storm, I got stranded not-quite at Richmond station for 40 minutes, stuck on a train that couldn't get onto a platform because there was no room for it. We decided to eat dinner in Richmond that night, rather than try and get on one of few trains that managed to leave the station.
The biggest storm I've seen was a night when the roads were flooded. I was meant to start work at 8pm. I left home at 6:30pm like I usually do. I got to work at 8:45pm. While walking from the carpark with one of my co-workers, and I chose to walk around a large puddle, but he told me he loves puddles, and decided to walk through it. It was a lot deeper than he thought, because he sank down to his knees. Despite my best efforts, I also ended up with some pretty wet socks by the time I made it onto the casino floor. Only to be told that the poker room was flooded, and we were all assigned as "spares". Spent most of the night bumming around because there were so many of us they didn't have enough busywork for us to do.
Today, I got to test run my new Gore-Tex shoes. I bought a Gore-Tex jacket earlier in the year, before the worst of the Winter rains, and I thought it was amazing. I even stopped taking an umbrella to and from work. My shoes did not fare so well. I ended up rotating between 3 pairs of shoes, because they'd all get incredibly wet. And the smell of runners soaked in rain is not pleasant. I saw an ad for "waterproof" shoes and decided I'd had enough. I'm glad I did, even though it's the most expensive pair of shoes I've ever bought ($299 - if you don't count my ice-skates that I think were $450), it was well worth the money today.
There's just something about women's work shoes that make them so unsuitable for walking. I've tried Nico's advice to just buy cheap shoes and replace them often. I've tried buying expensive shoes after being told I'm better off buying a good pair of shoes that'll last a while. Maybe I'm just really bad at walking, but they always end up with holes in the ball of the foot. Hmm, now that I think about it, the problem might be because I often have to stand on tip-toe to reach things.
I really like the rain. Well, I like it if I don't have anywhere in particular I need to be, and I'm not carrying a heap of stuff that I don't really want to get wet. It feels nice having water drip down my face. And even though it's cold water, it doesn't feel like a cold shower - probably because I'd be fully clothed. Jal was telling me how his favourite weather is humid rainy days, and I gave him a look of disbelief. Now that I think about it, if it's warm and rainy, that would be so lovely to walk in. It's warm enough that you don't feel cold when the rain hits you, but you still get to enjoy that rained on feeling. The only problem would be the shoes. And the wet socks. The rain seems to have died down in our area, though I'm thinking it's just the calm before the real storm. I look forward to seeing photos of all the chaos tomorrow.
Intern Daniel filmed the rain for me, as I didn't bring my camera to work today, but the footage is really grainy, so you can't see the heavy rain.
No comments:
Post a Comment