Typhoon Krosa was on a relentless path of destruction, headed for Taipei city as we sheltered in the lower school library at 4pm on Friday afternoon. We were attending a quite moving and beautiful celebration for the life of one of our friends and colleagues who died early this week. Mary was a Kiwi and a much loved one, really full of life and energy who went home just a few months ago to seek some treatment for a diagnosed cancer. She always intended to beat it and return, but she deteriorated quickly in the last few weeks. It was just an amazing ceremony, a real credit to everyone involved. Lewy spoke fondly of her as did a few others. Beautiful music was played and sung, the assembled Kiwis sang a Maori send off quite stirringly: as much as I don’t like these events, if you have to have one, this was about as good as it gets. Lots of people will miss Mary and it brought back thoughts for us for our other friends and colleagues who have also died, and also died of cancer.Friday night and Saturday just went wild. On Saturday, I watched as our massive and very thick and strong glass doors at the front bowed in quite alarmingly under the force of the typhoon. Windows and doors rattled and snarled, banging themselves in protest to such an extent that Virg’n Mary had huge saucer eyes and were zipping around just wondering where they should run and hide. We decided to draw the curtains in case the windows did smash in and try to block out the lashing and bashing by watching the calming and amusing “Ten Canoes” which Lewy had lent us. In the middle of the movie, the power decided to go off and we promptly found all our candles and torches and Cass ran the bath full of water. Usually if the power goes, the water is soon to follow and you need it for flushing the toilet etc etc. Mercifully, we sat in the dark for only the briefest of blackouts before we were able to resume normal programming!
When we got to sleep over the huffing and puffing outside we expected the big bad wolf to be still around with a vengeance on Sunday morning. We were surprised to be greeted by an eerie stillness and the sight of the carnage from the last few days was evident all through the neighbourhood. Dazed residents slowly emerged to start doing some fixing and tidying and there are massive piles of debris on every street corner awaiting a collection by the local government clean up guys.
Chris and Val called from their spot in Margaret River and described the most wonderful plans for a day trip: to be taken on a wine tasting tour along with gourmet cheese eating, visits to venison parks etc etc. With this in the back of our minds and mindful that my Mum will head off in a few days to the U.S. for magnificent tours operatic, musical and otherwise, we felt quite the unenlightened ones. So, off to the coast we went!
I had magnificent images of huge swells with off shore winds as the evil Krosa swept its way into the East China sea, but these dreams were soon shattered as in turn, the Pill box, Baisahawan, Green Ball, Jinshan and Pointies all had the most appalling slushy conditions. I was determined to get in the water and was just so glad that we persevered. After driving round the ravaged coast for 2 hours, the Cliff had just perfect condition! Better still, I managed to get a 3-4 second tube ride on one wave which absolutely made my day. Even better was the fact that Cass managed to capture nearly all of it on film…check pointyhat “The Green Room”. Starving hungry, we stopped at that great shop, 7/11, for some ice Starbucks caramel lattes and snacks: gotta love that “7”
Looking forward to a short week this week…two days of school, one day of PD (I’m presenting a workshop on “Blogs and Blogging” quite appropriately!) then we’re going to luxuriate in a 4 day holiday for the double ten Chinese holiday. Photos today are of some serious tree devastation straight across the road, Cass enjoying our 7/11 purchases and me on one of those excellent waves today!