Peter Harvey... Canberra

I am no longer poor. Don't get the silly idea that I'm suddenly rich though - my situation has merely improved to the level where large men with knuckledusters and nicknames like Chopper or Mash are no longer so intent on doing me bodily harm. This improvement was brought about by the completion of a programming contract I've been working on for the last month or so, and its related injection of cash into my debt-sodden bank account. I have not won the lottery, so don't call.

The contract was for a company in Canberra, who flew me down to this nation's capital to make sure everything worked before they paid me. Canberra is like a gigantic university campus, with wide drives, overcultivated shrubberies and huge, squat buildings built out of beige brick. The flowing trees lining the roads even reminded me a little of Oxford and Cambridge. Strangely, I saw no evidence at all of the recent bushfires - perhaps the government replanted the entire suburb when they heard I was visiting.

Returning to Brisbane, I found that it was raining steadily. Again. This makes a total of about three weeks of rain, punctuated by brief appearances of a large unknown object in the sky, said by locals to be "glowing with a yellow light". Yay for the farmers and the firefighters I suppose, but uh... how about stopping now?