By now everyone would be aware of our floods here in Queensland and Northern New South Wales.

There is a great photo essay here from our local paper.

I'm sure our collective thoughts and prayers are with all those affected.

A quick look at my subscriber list shows I have a great many readers in some of the areas badly affected.

I also have a large subscriber base in Europe.

Even though most of our news here is taken up with our wet weather on the east coast, and the dry weather on the west coast, we also know that over the holiday break, parts of Europe were experiencing a big freeze. While I'm sure most of the children saw the beauty in the snow and ice, I'm equally sure a lot of businesses there, like here, could have done without the disruption that natural disasters tend to cause.

One sign shop colleague in Scotland arrived at work to find a pipe had burst in his roof due to the cold, and he was confronted with his ceiling in a thousand pieces on the floor, water cascading down his walls, and thousands of pounds in damage to computers, stock and machinery.

We also experienced damage here with a massive hail storm, smashing skylights, damaging cars and flooding yards. Our own workshop has a leaking roof which we can't get fixed until the rain stops, and my parents have smashed skylights too. We were fortunate to get our cars undercover, although they did get minor damage with the hail, but plenty of our neighbours suffered much worse. Broken windscreens, sunroofs and bodywork that was pelted with hail. A local elderly woman caught in the storm was knocked down with the hail, and rushed to hospital. 

Its probably not the start we really wanted for 2011, but I guess it can only get better, surely it can't get much worse.