'ere we go again

After two days of heavy rain, the river has risen, the water is racing passed, Strong Stream Advice is issued and nothing but ducks and debris are moving on the river.  The boat is high above the mooring and I have to remember which leg has the dodgy knee and hip.  If I get it wrong I’m suspended with one leg out the boat and the other one in and too stiff to lift over the gunwale, sometimes I’m stuck like that for a long time. I wasn’t planning on going anywhere but there is a psychological difference between not planning on going anywhere and not being able to go anywhere. So the SSA is pissing me off. My herbs are submerged and I can’t be bothered to rescue them.  Maybe it was a bit premature of me to remove them from the dryer place higher up near the path and putting them nearer the river but passing dogs kept peeing on them. That must have been what gave my casseroles their distinctive taste.

To be positive: The Met Office isn’t forecasting much rain for this area in the next few days. Looking at my well-worn favourite site the EA River and Sea levels the levels at the gauging stations upstream are slowly going down (often more important than the rainfall here is what’s happening in the Nene catchment areas). There is only one flood alert and that is at Coggenhoe Caravan Site but that’s OK as Coggenhoe Caravan Site seems to be permanently underwater and it does make one wonder why they built it there.  The fields opposite have very little standing water. 

The other thing I noticed is the flow in my water feature.  Last December when the flooding was at its worst a spring sprung(actually three springs sprung) in the bank across the roadway. We channelled it across the roadway and down the middle of my mooring where a soak away had previously been constructed.  It became quite an impressive waterway, we thought of naming it and putting a notice ‘Beware of The Ford’ in front of it. It ran so clear we even thought of bottling it and selling it as our own mineral water (as Essence of Sheep because the sheep field is above it). The birds loved it when all else was frozen, the ducks came out of acres of river to paddle and drink in it.  I could lie in bed at night and listen to the sound of a waterfall.  I was even planning on buying a fishing gnome to stand by its side and fish.  Now its started to dry up and the rain this weekend hasn’t made it flow faster, so maybe out there the land isn’t as soggy as it was a couple of months ago and maybe the river will go down quickly and maybe I’ll be able to take the boat down to the pub and maybe spring will arrive and be followed by a glorious summer. Maybe

Stop Press:  The sun is out!