Wednesday May 16th, 2018

The exercise:

Write about a: state of emergency.

It's kind of hard to get the full effect without having the reference of how things normally look around here, but I thought I'd share this picture of the (closed) washrooms at Goodman Park:


And this:


That's where people usually play beach volleyball at the main beach. The typical shoreline is out past that tree... the one out beyond the nets.

4 comments:

Greg said...

Thank-you for the pictures. I see Goodman park needs to be renamed Goodman Aquapark and that the Osoyoos beach volleyball team will be retraining as a waterpolo squad.... More seriously though, that's definitely quite some flooding you've got going on there. Has it been raining a lot lately or is there some other reason for it?

A state of emergency
Sixticton's low-lying areas were under water: the local geologists (both of them) had concluded that Old Faithless had managed to find a pyroclastic rock bubble to hide in at the side of the local volcano and it had finally split open. The new waterfall down the side of Smokin' Joe's Mountain (the volcano name had been put to popular vote and had missed being called Burny McLavaface by only four votes) was picturesque and would certainly be a draw for tourists in the summer, but right now it was merely dumping tonnes of freshwater into parks, boulevards, and flood-plain housing. The dog-park had flooded to paddling level but the Mayor had barked his appreciation and gone for a swim, so efforts to do something about the flood were moving only slowly.
WrongStart, the local pre-school, had been built quite sensibly on a shelf of rock that had overlooked a small defile that the authorities had intended to develop into an educational botanical garden. Now it appeared to have been built on the edge of a white-water rafting river and the staff were spending more time than they would have liked trying to keep the children away from the windows, and indoors at recess.
"Bloody hell," said Jason. He sat down on a couch in the teacher's lounge and rubbed his forehead, pushing straggling blonde hair back only to have it flop forward again. "Is it just me or is it getting harder to park here?" He shifted uncomfortably.
"The Headmaster is selling access to the defile to the local extreme sports club," said Emma. "That couch is wet, by the way."
Jason stood up, his hands patting his bum as he tried to work out how bad the wetness was. "Did we leave the windows open again? The spray out there is like rainfall."
"No, Agatha brought a couple of three-year-olds in to have their owies seen to and they piddled on it," said Emma. "She's gone to get some Febreze for it. But anyway, the club are going to try white-water rafting today."
"Oh great," said Jason sniffing his fingers and wrinkling his nose. "So we'll never get the kids away from the windows then."
"Let them watch," said the Headmaster from the doorway. He came in. "It'll be educational."
"It's suicidal," said Emma. "It flooded a week ago -- there's trees, rocks, god knows what under that water. They're insane."
"They've signed a waiver."
Jason giggled and Emma shot him a stern look. "Do they even have a proper boat?"
"Yes," said the Headmaster. "They've got an inflatable dingy, the type that the British Royal Navy uses. It holds twelve apparently."
"They're filling it to capacity?"
"I count thirteen," said Jason. He pointed out the window and the Headmaster and Emma walked over with a sense of morbid curiosity.
"He's right," said Emma sounding surprised. "They've got rope too... what is going on?"
"They're... oh I see," said the Headmaster after a couple of minutes. "They want a figurehead on the prow."
"That's a person they're tying on!"
"That's the skinny thug," said Jason.
"Ah...."

morganna said...

She won't eat
She disdains her treats
She doesn't bounce
What is wrong with our dear bunny?
==================
Bunnies that don't eat die.

It was a hairball and she is feeling much better after some pineapple juice (yes, really!)

morganna said...

And that is a lot of water! So far, so good here with snowmelt, but there's flooding in Montana north of us.

Marc said...

Greg - cooler than usual spring meant the snow didn't melt at higher elevations until it got warm and then it all melted pretty much at once. There was a bit of rain as well, which didn't help matters.

I appreciate this. All of this. Wonderful stuff that brought a smile to my face :)

Morganna - I think I shall try some pineapple juice the next time I'm feeling a bit off, see if it'll do the trick for me too :)

Glad to hear you're safely out of the way of the flooding. We've had some very badly hit areas around here.