[woofa.express]

Water, it’s your friend until you get too much.

We are to have a family reunion in Brisbane this coming weekend. Second son who we call Moo is here from Honkers and all others are flying in with the exception of Gary and Patsy. We drove up, usually a 900 mile journey. We did this in our younger days in a day with four kids in the back of the car or 5 hours in our Cessna. Now we have no aeroplanes (all sold) we drive. What became 1 day became 2 days but this time 3. Diversions with flooded rivers.
It goes like this. Sometimes the water in the Indian ocean to our west is warm. It’s referred to as the Indian Ocean Dipole. If it’s negative, that is cooler in the west, that is on the east coast of Africa. Thus the east Indian Ocean is warmer, that is on the west coast of Australia. This brings about rain across our inland. The water to our east, the Pacific Ocean, is somewhat similar. If the water in the west of the ocean is warmer than that in the east ocean it is called La Nina and brings wet weather.. This year we have a double whammy with both oceans warm against our coast. It is not only wet but we have flooding and thus the 3 day drive to Brisbane. The 900 mile drive became 1,200. This wet season looks set to continue. Farmers were having a good growing season, one can tell by the smile they were presenting. But that has all changed. They are pumping water off their crops night and day and the smile gone. For many of them this winter crop, cereal and canola, represents their annual income.
When cool water is on our east coast the condition is called El Nino or the coming of the boy child (Christ). A term coined by the Spanish speaking fishermen on the Pacific coast of South America. And in the Indian ocean it is called positive Indian Ocean Dipole. Positive to Africa that is.

Now from my friend Ann. Useless information. Quotes you hear but never knew how they were derived.
There is an old Hotel/Pub in Marble Arch, London, which used to have a gallows adjacent to it.
Prisoners were taken to the gallows to be hanged.
The horse-drawn dray, carting the prisoner, was accompanied by an armed guard, who would stop the dray outside the pub and ask the prisoner if he would like ''ONE LAST DRINK''. If he said YES, it was referred to as ONE FOR THE ROAD. If he declined, that Prisoner was ON THE WAGON.

And the dead, unrelated to above, were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up.
Hence the custom of ''Holding a Wake’'.