A Day of Two Halves

(photo by Sarah Mason)

 The morning was happy and even a bit sunny. Me and Sarah went for a walk to Jack Bridge admiring the grasses and the Hogweed on the top path on the way home and chatting about the week ahead.

(photo by Sarah Mason)

At lunch time I had a meeting with the family web team (Ffion and Robert) in Organic House so they could show me the first website layouts that they had been working on. Very VERY pleasing indeed. Ffion is sooooo clever. She has made four possible layouts, each very beautiful but one shining out above all others. While we were cosy and happy upstairs in the cafe the rain began to pour, perhaps heavier than I have ever seen it before. We wondered whether to stay dry and have another cuppa or if we should make a run for it. We buttoned up and dashed along Market Street only to find ourselves paddling through pooling flood water.

So quick.

And again we watched as the water rose. All the shop keepers watching with jaws dropped. All the decorators and contractors who were there cleaning up from the last flood trying to keep the waters at bay. We watched the waters fill up the floor of Dynamite opposite praying it wouldn't reach her freshly papered walls. 

And it wasn't just the bottom of the valley that got it this time. The rivers hadn't burst. This was surface flooding from extreme rain onto totally saturated land. We had a months worth of rain in three hours. The roads from the hills turned to rivers washing rocks, debris, muddy waters and even bits of the road itself down to the bottom of the valley. People who lived high up in the hills got flooded as the water rushed down the hillsides. People who lived down low got it as it reached the valley bottom. 

Absolutely unbelievable.

Our sunny morning on the hills and suddenly felt very very far away.