A wet one

When the Fox came to bed Monday night he commented it had rained heavily during the night. The floor of the utility room might be wet.

When I got up, I saw puddles where the flower beds dip beside the lawn. I went into the utility room. My sandals didn’t squeak as they tend to on a wet carpet. All seemed dry. I tentatively put my bare foot on the carpet. Possibly a bit damp, more likely just cold & the damp from the damp air from the drying washing. I thought nothing more.

Then as I made my breakfast I noticed our neighbour was busy brushing just the other side of our wall. I went to investigate & say hello. He was brushing gallons of water to the drains. He’d been to work at the local power station, done the urgent work & returned home to mop up. He then pointed to the next garden. The whole large lawn was a lake. The seat of the children’s swing was floating on top.

The neighbour continued to tell me of other events. Apparently up the street they had had to call out the fire brigade to pump out the water from their house. Another person lost their electricity as the water mixed with the electric cables running under their house, fusing the lot. One person, who’d just put in new floor boards, checked underneath to discover the water was just 2 inches below. I blessed all the drainage we had had put in when we had the garden redesigned. Undoubtedly, as it was before, the lake would have covered half our garden & got into the utility room & garage. As it was all had disappeared except those few puddles next to the lawn.

Later in the day we went out. We discovered Lancaster had been flooded once more. Those poor people had only just mopped up after being flooded a couple of weeks ago. Some businesses had only just opened after repairs due to Storm Desmond.

And still the showers keep coming, though most of the surface water had drained away during the course of yesterday. I should think the local rivers such as the Lune will have broken their banks once more as the water runs in from all around. I just hope this isn’t a sign of the August to come.