Sunday Selection #665

 Long ago, Kim of Frog ponds Rock, (who no longer blogs), dreamed up a meme called Sunday Selections. 

A place where those who were willing could put up photos they wanted to share, new, old, good, bad or indifferent, any photos you please. 

Nothing rude or vulgar though.

And we don't mind at all if other bloggers care to join us.

The meme is now continued by Elephant's Child and I join in as do a few others. Andrew is one.  Messymimi is another. Drop in to their blogs and have a look.

Wisewebwoman has also occasionally been joining us.

Last Monday I took myself to the shopping centre that has replaced the old Brickworks Market, it's quite nice there

the Chritsmas tree has lovely decorations

and there is a little "Wiggles" merry-go-round or roundabout depending on where you live, it's for babies and toddlers

after leaving the shopping centre I walked as far as I could manage back towards the city and finalyy sat down to wait for a bus opposite this Greek Church

this tower still has a bell, while the other one has what appears to be loudspeakers

the gates tell us this is Saint Nicholas Church

later that night we had a huge storm with so much rain the gutters and downpipes couldn't cope, here you see some of the spillover

and the backyard behind the flats got flooded, but there was worse the next morning:

this is my upstairs neighbour's back balcony, ankle deep in water because the drainpipe was completely clogged, that water flowed into her flat and all the rooms were awash, at least an inch and a half deep.  I went up there to help her scoop and bail until the emergency plumbers got there. 

They tried to snake out the drain pipe, but couldn't, so tried from the other end where it is supposed to open out into the driveway and guess what? The under garden main drain is completely collapsed and filled with dirt and tree roots. It will have to be dug up and replaced. So in a way, the flooding might be seen as a good thing,since otherwise the collapsed drain might never have been discovered. 

The plumbers used a suction vacuum thing to get the water out of her flat, but only after they had drilled a hole in the outside edge of her balcony to let that water escape.

this is inside my back porch showing the plastic sheets covering the shadecloth, with the underside of the upstairs balcony being that grey triangle at the top. See the tiny gap between? A LOT of her flood water came in through that gap and my previously dry back porch got quite wet. 

I had to prop up my fake tree after dragging out the fake grass from under it so the underside could dry out

some of Angel's old lost toys floated out from under the big plastic trunk, badly stained and smelling funny, so I threw them away.

here is most of the fairy houses and other stuff which also got wet

it was all due for a wash anyway, but I hadn't planned on doing the whole lot at once

some of the sudsy wet pieces draining off

and then draining/drying on a towel on the kitchen floor. Now of course I have to put it all back the way it was, and I'm not sure I want to. I may just pack it all away.

the letter of the day was "S", for Sesame Street, Strawberries and Sunhats. They LOVE strawberries.

This is the fake fireplace made by J and S from foam blocks and other bits, and the top section of their Christmas Tree, up on a cabinet where the girls can't reach it. S is really crafty!

here we are having a really great day together, well a few hours anyway

this little video shows the flickering "flames" in the grate inside the fake fireplace. I hope it plays.