Hail the size of golf balls

This is our back garden yesterday afternoon. Those white bits you see are hailstones. And yes they were really the size of golf balls. And yes I was glad I was inside. The noise on the roof was quite astounding. Poor birds - surely they cannot shelter enough from such stuff on the branches of trees? Where do they go? I half expected to see them all huddled together under our eaves but there was no sign. And so far I have found no dead bodies so I assume they survived somehow. The kangaroos too must have been a bit battered. I certainly was not game to go out into it.

Note also that other feature in the photograph the mini waterfall in the left foreground - that's water pouring out from the gutters which had blocked up. Out here at the back of the house it's not a problem. It all just flows down to the Yarra - taking what little soil we have with it I have to say. But on the other side where the same thing happened we had to get out there and do our usual brushing away of water trick.

And yes, in the distance in that photograph it's like a sheet of water - a mini lake. Because we basically have no topsoil to absorb it, and anyway what soil we do have actually doesn't absorb water anyway, and also because our land slopes slightly down to the river, and this is the last flattish point where it can collect.

Today the ground is covered in debris ripped from the trees - lots of bark and little twigs.

And now it is raining again - although thankfully not quite as hard.

Well that's Melbourne, well Australia really, for you. A land of extremes and becoming increasingly so. At least there is little danger from fire at the moment. And we don't have to water the plants. There's always a bright side.

Not great for the tennis - though again - the bright side is they won't be suffering from smoke inhalation - for a few days anyway.

My veggies seem to be amazingly undamaged by all of that, though the netting rather sank down under the weight of the hailstones.

Not much of a post I know. But it was rather remarkable.