They forecast rain. Lots of it. I first realised when I saw J with his JCB thing dropping off a pallet of sandbags in the lane. The village gets flooded regularly, sometimes more seriously than others. We know the routine and when there's a deep depression approaching, people muck in. The year before last, we all had to get our shovels out and rebuild the road.
I've just been and sorted out the conservatory, lifting things off the floor - mainly a pile of cardboard boxes due for recycling. So far we've been lucky - the house has been just high enough up to avoid the floodwater, although the worst flood we ever had came within an inch of the threshold. The conservatory however, built onto the side of the house, is lower than the rest of it and has always flooded at the drop of a hat. It's just one of those things.
Most alarms are false alarms. Hopefully this one will turn out to be one too. What for us is merely having to mop out the conservatory can mean misery, trauma, trashed living areas and insurance claims for people up the road. Not something people need at the best of times - and this, of course, is not the best of times.
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We've just been looking through the photos from Mrs C's wildlife camera again. The woodpecker's been back. It caught a shot of a starling, too. There used to murmurate spectacularly over the village but there aren't enough of them around to do it at the moment.
Lovely shots of birds on the feeders. The weather forecast certainly doesn't look good at the moment, though it's rather bewildering when it comes to my area - we have a yellow rain warning in place but very little rain actually forecast.
ReplyDeleteThanks. One never knows. The worst storm we ever had came completely out of the blue!
DeleteHope the rains aren't as bad as predicted and all is well there. We worry when the big rains come here. We're only 20 feet above sea level and if the rains coincide with a significant king tide it is not good at all.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds scary. We're only a few feet above the stream here. It can quite easily turns into a torrent that goes well over the top of a pair of wellingtons. Neighbours on both sides of us who are one or two feet lower have both had their houses flooded.
DeleteI hope you and your neighbours are spared the floods.
ReplyDeleteWe live on a hillside so although we are reasonably safe from rising floodwater, sometimes the gushing water runoff from the tops cause a dreadful mess.
Yes. Being on a hillside can be awful. I've heard of people having water pouring in the back door and out the front. A philosophical old farming couple I know of up the road have always simply sat in the living room in their wellingtons whenever it rains! (To put this in perspective, there's also a farmhouse up the dale where you have to step over an old telegraph pole in the living room. One end is permanently burning, pushed into the fireplace! I guess they have a supply of old telegraph poles and don't like sawing them up much).
DeleteGood grief! I must suggest that to my husband as he is getting very tired of sawing and chopping logs for the fire!
DeleteI hope that things don't flood this time as it makes a terrible mess.
ReplyDeleteHope you stay dry (isn't that what one says to very old people?). I keep telling my kids that when they eventually buy houses, make sure they are not where they could be flooded, even if it's never happened there.
ReplyDeleteHaha! My first job was as a care assistant, so I've been there, got the t-shirt etc. Regarding buying houses and flooding, it's not just being near water or in a dip - it's often quite hard to tell! Being on a slope can be dodgy.
DeleteLove the walk although it does always slightly concern me that the walker always sounds so breathless.
ReplyDeleteDo you think? Perhaps that's when he's been walking uphill.
DeleteI'm sorry to hear you have the potential of flooding again. I suppose at least it is good people have the insight to be prepared with sand bags.
ReplyDeleteThe pictures are great from your trail cam. Have you captured anything unexpected at night time yet?
We're pretty well prepared. We have a village facebook group and whatsapp group to share stuff about floods, pandemics, etc.
DeleteWe haven't tried the camera at night yet. There are all sorts of things we could use it for, I think.
Well fingers crossed you have escaped any flooding. Here the river is high and the fields are flooded. Must be great fun to have a camera on the birds, woodpeckers are so colourful.
ReplyDeleteHope you're still above the water level! Fingers crossed, we seem to be OK here. The dustbin lorry managed to get round, even.
DeleteHope that you're staying dry!
ReplyDeleteWe are, thank you. It seems to have missed us this time, so far.
DeleteThere's been some terrible flooding around the country, hope you weren't affected too badly. Lovely photos of the birds, specially the blue tit caught in flight
ReplyDeleteThanks for that. It's great when the camera catches them in the air. Thought we might just aim it into the air, not at a feeder, as an experiment.
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