more cleaning up

I have spent a couple more days this week helping clean up after the floods in Brisbane - this time in Fairfield at my school friends parent's house.  They live right on the river, and they were pretty badly flooded.

Starting to clean out the pool with buckets of mud.

We had to stir up the mud from the bottom of the pool so it would go up the pump.  I was convinced I could see creatures moving in the water and had visions of swamp monsters and bull sharks lurking in the water - so when a tiny silver fish leapt into my boot I let out an almighty screech totally overdramatising the event.  There were little fish, frogs, lizards, prawns and cane toads all swimming around in the mud in that pool.  It was eventually all pumped out and clean.

 Digging out the garden

The river still in the backyard

Child labour - they were in charge of cleaning up the vegie garden

but soon came to shovel mud

Also we got to use a fire hose.  Those things are mighty heavy - no wonder firemen are buffed.  Not that I have ever noticed that much....

It will take a long time before their house is back to normal and liveable.  I hope we can keep supporting them, and others in Brisbane whose lives will never be the same again.

Also - check out these pictures from the ABC website - they are amazing.