We’re under Sixteen Inches of muddy brown water (by sarah)

This was writen off line on Saturday:

Ok well I think it was only about 6 inches but that doesn't fit with the Nick Cave lyrics ok.

We are a site of total devistation, having seen the pictures of yesturday when Al got back from dropping me and Jean off - it is a very good job I wasnt here as it would have been very very scary I think. Last night I ended up staying up until 3 am looking for our insurence stuff but have a horrible feeling it might be part of the BIG SOGGY and so I'll have to try and find out which policy wer're on the hard way.

The carpet is beyound salvage with grit and mud oozing from it with every squelching foot fall. The paint and plaster are bubbling off of the lower parts of the walls, I havent dared look in the brown seat were we keep such things as sacks of sugar, rice and cat biscuits.

Synthia the draft excluder is in a very sorry shape and has been taken away by a neighbour to try and salvage - I've had that snake since time in memorial and it is the brethren of the one that lived in the house of one of my nans neighbours - they bought Synthia for me as a sort of please leave our carpet snake alone, presant.

Sigh - I think the worse bit was fishing all the soaked Jean toys out of the mire - they should pretty much all wash out but there was something somehow devastatingly poignant about soggy floppy rabbits and teddies that have water running out of them when you pick them up.

There is still no power down stairs though we have light and thanks to a solid fuel fire - heat. We've spent most of the day trying to find homes for all the things off of the funiture so that we could move the funiture so that we could rip up the capet which is harder than you'd think especially when it turns out the radiators are on top of the carpet and we are struggling to see an easy way to dismount the heaters.

I was releived to see that our extensive book collection had all survived - well it had right up until one of the kittens knocked a stack of books waiting for transport up the stiars into the muddy squelch! I was not happy especially as it coped one Anne Rice, one C.J. Cherry and an Asimov 🙁 (since this was written I also found a Clive Baker and Nivan book awash :()

I think we're defenitly in for the long hull with this one 🙁

In the news (by alaric)

BBC local news report on the flooding around here

Flood updates (by alaric)

Well, on Saturday night, Jean started projectile vomiting in a big way. Over the course of a few hours. So on Sunday her grandparents came and picked her up, to take here to Essex, away from muddy water and biting flies. And contaminated tapwater, since it turns out that water treatment plants had flooded; they say we should boil all water now.

And since the reservoirs are emptying, and they can't fill them up again with the treatment plants flooded, they may turn off the mains water. When this was announced, there was rioting in supermarkets over bottled water stocks.

Sigh...

Flood pictures (by alaric)

Here are the pictures to go with the last post.

The journey home

Arrival

When the waters receded

FLOOD!! (by alaric)

This time we're really flooded.

Yes, I know, we've claimed to be flooded before. The kind of flood you get when an appliance's plumbing breaks, and the carpet is all squelchy.

This time, it was ankle-deep...

It rained a lot today, and the stream rose so high that it came over its banks and poured across the drive. The waterfall became a roaring pond, with water cascading down the driveway between the two houses to rejoin the stream at the millpond, as well as water cascading across our parking area and down behind our house. This meant that the tunnel that normally carries the stream from the waterfall to the pond behind the house was full of high-pressure water, which proceeded to squirt between the foundation stones. Water came through the wall at the back of our fireplace, but not very much compared to the torrent that burst from the wall at the back of the woodpile. This minor river ran down the gulley in front of the house, where it filled the tomato grow-bags with water, swelling them up, making them form a dam - so the water level rose until it came over our doorstep, filling downstairs ankle deep and tripping the electricity supply.

All this happened while I was out delivering Sarah and Jean to Cheltenham - a trip that ended up taking a while, due to flooded roads. Luckily Barbara was around, with a friend, who let themselves into our house and shifted a lot of stuff that would otherwise have been ruined. When I came back Barbara and I shifted the grow-bags, removing the dam. This caused the water level to drop quickly, and soon the house was emptying out until it reached the level of the doorstep, at which point it stayed there, kept topped up by the water coming through the wall.

I rescued a few more things that were getting wet, then set off to collect Sarah and Jean again, now concerned. I had taken a long time to get home from Cheltenham due to flooded roads, so I took a route via high ground (up to Birdlip, then over Leckhampton and down into Cheltenham). To my surprise, the centre of Cheltenham was awash, with the police closing roads down - so I picked Sarah up and we headed towards where Jean's nursery was. The usual route was blocked by a small lake where a roundabout normally sits, so we had to take a long drive around trying to find unblocked routes and avoid the long queues of traffic.

This took over an hour, and we were starving by then, so we stopped off at a supermarket on the way back for a quick snack, before proceeding to make our way home.

There we fed Jean and put her to bed, had dinner (thanks to Barbara letting us use her cooker), helped Barbara mop about a bit, then (without electricity, and with the place still too wet to do much with) we're retiring to hunt out insurance documents and have an early night, to prepare for tomorrow.

But we're all alive!

And now we have photos uploaded