It rained and it rained but the cicadas still sang. Blast it.

I made soup in my dressing gown ... It may not sound very glamorous, but it’s true nonetheless. Yesterday around about 11.00am, the time when Shared Kitchen usually goes out, my daughter Ilaria and I were sitting huddled together on a couch in our dressing gowns looking at old photos rescued from the flooded bedroom below while a pot of soup bubbled away on the stove. Yep, flooded. Sheets of rain fell from the sky. For hours. It’s rained heavily here on Waiheke many times before and made things soggy but this day it was different. Maybe the earth was too dry to absorb all the rain, maybe it was the full moon, or a high water table, or maybe that’s just how it was and that’s that. Whatever it was, the water spouted up out of rock (geysers!), formed rivers, gouged out earth and flowed down to the sea. Across my property ... just as it did I am sure to many other properties around the country. See the full story and pics here Without electricity, and with a different focus, Shared kitchen was put on the back burner for awhile. But we've bounced back! We're drying out (sort of ...) and trying to ignore the forecast for more rain.Ilaria has cooked some lovely peppers to cheer us up, and I've fallen back on my old comfort food potatoes. She stuffed the peppers with freekeh – a toasty smoky grain – and it makes an easy and economical vegetarian main course, and I cooked the potatoes with onion and garlic, then finished them with chorizo. They're simply gorgeous (I know I say that about every potato dish I cook), and they're flavoured with oregano. Do you know the difference between oregano and marjoram? And how to use them? Lucky for me I harvested my beautiful oregano the day before the big rains came, but my tomatoes are battered, the chilli plants look distinctly distraught and the feijoa trees are ailing. Guess you'll see me on the end of a spade for awhile to come. Hope you had better luck at your place. Julie