It's a tad wet out there ...
Floods! Not through our house, thankfully, but the police have closed the bridge in the local village, and the fire brigade have evacuated 49 of the houses next to the river, despite the flood defences that were built several years ago. Apparently the Tyne just downstream from us is around six and a half metres higher than normal, which is about half a metre more than they've recorded since records began sixty years ago.
I had to drive through a few inches of floodwater on the roads several times on the way home from work.
Luckily, our house is fairly high up the hillside from the river, so we're not in any danger of flooding, but it must be dreadfully disruptive for the people affected. It makes you wonder why builders ever looked at the wide, flat piece of land along the bottom of the valley, running alongside the river and thought "That looks like a nice flat bit to build houses on", rather than "flood plain". It seems painfully obvious, but then we have the benefit of hindsight and having seen that bit flooded several times in recent years. It's not as if the houses are that new either - most look Victorian/Edwardian - but then maybe they were more optimistic that they could contain nature in those days.
Well, the current advice against non-essential travel will give me an excuse to stay at home inside in the warm tomorrow rather than ferrying the kids all over the place!
I had to drive through a few inches of floodwater on the roads several times on the way home from work.
Luckily, our house is fairly high up the hillside from the river, so we're not in any danger of flooding, but it must be dreadfully disruptive for the people affected. It makes you wonder why builders ever looked at the wide, flat piece of land along the bottom of the valley, running alongside the river and thought "That looks like a nice flat bit to build houses on", rather than "flood plain". It seems painfully obvious, but then we have the benefit of hindsight and having seen that bit flooded several times in recent years. It's not as if the houses are that new either - most look Victorian/Edwardian - but then maybe they were more optimistic that they could contain nature in those days.
Well, the current advice against non-essential travel will give me an excuse to stay at home inside in the warm tomorrow rather than ferrying the kids all over the place!