Severe weather warning

They said a nasty cold front with rain and strong winds would come through today ... and by golly it has. The snowfields a couple of hundred kilometres to the south have had blizzards - which is good for them and the skiers I suppose - but it feels like winter here.  The front wasn't supposed to come through until lunchtime so we went out for a walk this morning - but close to home, just in case. We were going to do the "diplomatic canberra" walk around the embassies; and got about ten minutes in when it started  with horizontal freezing rain. Here are the boys are the start of the walk - looking pretty dubious about the weather. "I'm cold. It's going to rain. We should go home." "Nonsense! We'll have a lovely brisk walk. There's a patch of blue sky over there! Isn't this FUN?"



We will have to do the walk properly at some point, because it is quite interesting looking at the embassies. They were encouraged to build in their national architectural style - or some ghastly 70s pastiche thereof - so it's the Chinese embassy above. The Kiwis, unsurprisingly, did their own thing and put corrugated iron cows on the lawn.



So we did exactly eight minutes of the walk before sprinting back to the car, and now we are all tucked in for a cosy afternoon at home. The rain is drip dripping down, the heaters are all on and the cat wants to go outside, for thirty seconds, then inside, for two minutes, then outside, for thirty seconds ... I have been doing some sewing and the boys are on the Wii.

This photo was last night - a boy and his cat. I think the sofa scene could be re-enacted tonight ... that window is bare because the blind was broken and had to go into the shop and we haven't quite put it back up yet. Perhaps today.