I also anticipated creating brackets for the Standard Bridging - I picked up 15 metres of 50mm x 4 mm angle on Friday.

Also on Saturday I needed to buy some more 125 x 75 lintel from Vinsans to create the hallway brackets.

So, I was up at 5.00 am Saturday and shot out to Wooroloo to collect some 150 C purlins that I missed when retrieving some Z purlins earlier in the week.

As I headed back to Mundaring, around 6.30 am, the storm struck. There was a monumental downpour and as I neared our only set of traffic lights I could see that the intersection and many parts of the road beyond were flooded.

I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and decided to pull in to Dome Coffee Shop for half an hour until the worst had abated.

By this stage the water in the intersection was over the top of the wheels of small cars.

Also a drainage pit in the street was running in reverse with water geysering out of it and the steel grate popped out of its seating.

By the time I left the rain had diminished to a steady drizzle.

I headed down to Vinsans Demolition yard. My timing was perfect - there was a 5 minute break in the rain while I selected a piece of steel and lashed it on to the back of my utility.

Back home I commenced trimming various purlins down to 2010 mm for the hallway and notching out where necessary.

Around 10.00 am the power dropped out and did not come back on again for 24 hours.

Throughout Perth, apparently, there was widespread damage from the storm - power poles down, rooves off houses.

At one stage 65 thousand houses were without power.

I spent the rest of the day washing purlins down.

Mainly this was to remove a fine coating of mud so that I could check if there was any white oxide areas.

These I will cover with a metal primer and then a "silver" enamel coat - probably unecessary but I am just being cautious.

We went to bed at 8.30 pm because there was not much to do except stare at candles.

I woke up at 4.00 am, could not sleep anymore and decided to get up and see if I could get the old generator in the garden shed running.

By now I was concerned that we could lose the contents of the fridge and freezer to spoilage.

By torchlight I hauled the generator out from its position where it had slept for the last 5 years, gave it a dust down, fuelled it, topped up the oil and tried to start it.

There was a dangerous leak around the fuel tap. I applied a temporary fix - a small snaplock bag tied around it with gardening wire.

The carburettor must need cleaning as it would run for 20 seconds on full choke and then stop.

By this stage it was 6.00 pm and I had not had a cup of coffee for a full 8 hours so I headed down to Dome again for my morning hit. They fortunately had power - must be on a different circuit.

I returned home and continued on with washing down purlins.

At 8.00 am I rang Ian to see if I could borrow his generator. He very kindly said that he would bring it around - it needed cleaning, fuelling and oil topping up.

An hour later we had the fridge and freezer running again and all headed off for breakfast at, you guessed it, Dome Coffee Shop.

By the time we returned the power was back on.