And now for the weather.....

Ahhh the weather, like it or not, it affects us all in some way or other. Some people tend to ignore it and some people become meteorologists. I have to admit that I'm a bit of a closet meteorologist, and have confessed to Miss R in sheepish overtones that, yes, I have taken part in a storm chase, and yes, it fully exemplifies my inner geekishness. To this day I take more than a passing interest in the weather, and living in Melbourne things are never quite dull....except maybe these past 10 years of prolonged drought. So, on Wednesday my fair old city was hit with the remnants of ex-tropical cyclone Pancho (who decided on 'Pancho' for crying out loud??). The day dawned with nothing much to suggest the day that lay ahead, except that the sky was, in the words of Jimi Hendrix "...a hell fire red yeah!" I did also notice that my ride to work from the illustrious northern suburbs only required the most minimal amount of effort thanks to a tonking tail wind. And then the wind got worse.....much worse. Luckily by this time I had arrived at work and was safely cocooned in my office. Within three hours the wind had gone from a stiff breeze to strengths normally associated with category 2 cyclones. The windows actually buckled and I had to pop my ears on numerous occasions. Unfortunately I had to brave the elements and head out to get some lunch. THree buildings in the immediate vicinity had had their windows blown out and glass was all over the street. Trees were losing branches all over the show and the dust in the air made the whole scene apocalyptic. By home time things hadn't gotten any better, and that lovely tail wind in the morning had turned into the mother of all headwinds. To make matters even better for riding, it has started to rain. So with that I thought the only solution was to ride to a train station and get a train home. Alas, such an idea was fruitless; every train had been cancelled due to fallen trees and lightning strikes. I guess the number of people waiting haplessly at the station would've told me that. So it was time to buckle down, turn into the wind and pedal my arse off. The traffic has horrendous to say the least. Every traffic light had been knocked out and the entire city had become choked in dust, rain and peak hour traffic. The sky glowed an eerie red colour suggesting that Judgment Day was nigh. And yet, on I rode, by passing all the traffic, slowly, but surely, and in the end, I managed to get home. How I managed it I'll never know. Riding head first into 100kph winds is not much fun, but I count myself lucky that I could get home. I would hazard a guess and say that if I was in a car it would've taken another hour or two. Just awful.