Still no rain despite being Easter

Last night's spectacular light show over Cape Town was regrettably not accompanied by much rain - we need a good strong northwesterly bringing rain up from the South Atlantic for that, and the persistent high pressure over the interior continues to keep rain away from the very southwestern tip of southern Africa. The rest of the country is being flooded, and we are limited to 50 litres of water a day. Something is not working out here.
Easter is traditionally when we get the first rains of autumn, and last year it didn't happen, setting the tone for a dry and mild winter. Snow was a major source of replenishment of the dams in the past, but the last real snow on the mountains of the Western Cape was in the 1960s - a time when one could ski near Cape Town - something few people even know about these days. We are told by a certain pastor that we are being punished for our evil ways, but if that were so, the entire world should have been a desert years ago, so we will have to go with solar cycle and El Nino.
After days of frantic feasting on fruit and suet balls, the birds have totally disappeared from the garden today. Perhaps they have indigestion - I can picture them lying groaning in the fork of a branch thinking they had overindulged - or maybe they are back in the relative wilds after a few millimetres of rain where they can forage further from the cats, who lie in wait with hunting eyes in the undergrowth.
Once again today's forecast for good rains have come to naught, but we will continue to live in hope of something really unexpected.