Ron Savage

Hi Folks

Yes, it's true. Even though I live on the southern edge of the Australian mainland, the floods have hit here. I'm in Melbourne, the capital city of the state of Victoria.

Last night, about 9 pm, the floods from other parts of my suburb, Murrumbeena, backed up, and drowned my car to about halfway up the windscreen. The car was parked in the street, in front of the house.

Luckily, the house is on a slight slope down to the street, so the floodwaters stopped about the height of 1 (one!) brick below the floorboards.

This morning I was on the phone for about 10 minutes to roadside assistance (a commercial service) who say that since water got inside the car, it's an insurance matter. So, they transferred me to another department, and after another 25 minute wait I lodged a claim.

Since the car won't start, it's going to be towed to a local crash repair shop. I've been warned by the insurance company that there's no guarantee it'll be salvagable.

It's a 14 year old Subaru, and runs (or did) perfectly, but new it'd now be at least $36,000 to replace, so perhaps I'll be upgrading to a second hand car. I bought it new. Very sad.

At least I am within easy walking distance of a major train line, which I'll need to take a couple of stops to a suburb with a big supermarket. My local one was confiscated recently to pay the debts of the owner, who got caught with gambling and alcohol addications.

Of course, we're safe, which is the main thing.

This comes on top of having to get the house re-wired (it's 80+ years old), since a power point in the kitchen recently started to burn. The switch was 'on', but nothing was plugged in. Scary. Then I'll have to get the roof leak fixed.