We might be a resilient lot here on the South Coast but after the battering of the last couple of days, even the toughest of us could be forgiven for feeling exasperated by the cards we've been dealt this year.
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Ill fortune has seen us endure drought, firestorms, floods, a pandemic and more floods. Disaster heaped upon disaster, tragedy upon tragedy, heartbreak upon heartbreak.
It seems that one week we're pleading for visitors to return to help our ailing economy, the next we're imploring them to stay away for fear they'll bring the resurgent virus into the region.
One week, we're eager to socialise with friends we haven't seem for months. We're looking forward to having someone else cook for us in a restaurant or club that's been off-limits for ages.
The next week, we see a COVID cluster in a club and, wham, the doors seem to slam shut again, at least to visitors from distant postcodes.
One week, we're watching with growing alarm the upcoming fire season as the rain seems to giving us a wide berth. The next, homes are flooded, roads submerged, lives disrupted yet again.
We just can't seem to catch a break.
Despite all this, we have in the main met these tribulations with fortitude and a good measure of humour.
Facebook groups have sprung up with the theme "we're in this together". Memes poking fun at the absurdity of life in 2020 have at least raised chuckles in an otherwise miserable year.
We've paused to think of the courageous people on various frontlines who have stepped up to help us.
The local police officers sent down south to enforce border controls designed to keep us all a little safer.
The electricity people who've been out in truly atrocious weather to restore power to communities blacked out by the storms.
The SES and RFS volunteers confronting very different extremes.
The health workers working long hours outside in the cold to see that people can get tested for COVID-19.
All these folk deserve our gratitude.
We should be thankful, too, that as a country we've risen to these challenges so much better than other places around the world. This year has been tough. It's been cruel. And it's been unrelenting. But we will get through it.