Floody Hell

Hmm. It’s almost as if someone’s been taunting the weather gods around here, for we had our second day of continuous heavy rain in less than a week, falling on ground that’s not so much saturated as basically muddy water with a few sheep floating in it. I sat down at around 9:30 to get on with some work and when I looked out of the window an hour or so later the flood in the yard was lapping at the bike shed door and I had to dash out to do an emergency leafectomy on the drains. You know you live in the southwest of Scotland when you can almost get flooded out on the side of a hill. I was supposed to be cycling in to town to put my 2p worth to a local consultation effort, but I took an executive decision that I could email in my remarks instead. Sometimes the whole ‘it’s better by bike’ thing meets cold hard reality and backs down, muttering something about caution being the better part of valour. That said, as I stood at the roadside with the landlord and we watched the cars nosing cautiously through the flood with their bumpers half hanging off, I’m not sure the car drivers were really any better off themselves. At least if the flood waters come up over the drivetrain of your bicycle the worst you suffer is wet feet, not a complete write off. Sometimes the best mode of transport of all is a nice warm dry kitchen and a broadband connection.

Which goes some way to explain why there are no photos of the ford for you this afternoon. Quite apart from the whole missing depth gauge taking the fun out of it for everyone, I didn’t fancy discovering the hard way that the flooding on the road was over welly depth. I’m dedicated to the blog, but not that dedicated…

More tomorrow, if I’m spared.