It was under 3°C
when we woke up and it had already been raining for hours. Henrietta
was being buffeted by the wind and had been all night.
The
farmer's wife who runs the campsite popped in to see us in the middle
of the morning. With the rain pouring down and the wind howling, we
quickly invited her in. She came to check that we were OK and to ask
if we wanted anything from the shops as her husband was about to go
out. We really appreciated the offer and the fact that she had come
out in the atrocious weather. We had quite a long chat about the farm
and milking her cows and were able to compliment her on her gorgeous
lemon drizzle cake. She said that, for the first time ever, water was
forcing its way through the wall into the house. The driving rain was
exploiting a weakness in the wall and they found it dripping through
a downstairs ceiling. They have drilled some holes in the ceiling to
drain the water and hung a tarpaulin over the wall to protect it.
That gives some indication of how bad the weather is!
The
first break from the rain came at 16:00, although light showers
continued into the evening. We reckon that we had at least 15 hours
of continuous rain! The water was running in rivers from the field
above us and down the camping field a few metres behind the van. The
field had been recently planted with potatoes and some of these were
appearing on the surface, soon to be transported by the river and
deposited in the camping field.
A
geography lesson was played out beside Henrietta. I remember lessons
that explained how river deltas formed and here we saw it in
practice. The main river poured down towards the middle of the van
but then a well-placed trench diverted it south until it found a weak
point along the fence line where it poured over into the camping
field. However, some of the large volume of silt carried by the river
was deposited in the trench and this eventually raised the ground
level at that point and blocked its southerly route. Soon the river
breached the fence line and poured into the camping field underneath
Henrietta. Like magic (it should have been accompanied by the
Thunderbirds theme!), the farmer appeared with a fork and cleared the
trench so that the water reverted to its previous line behind
Henrietta. Our hosts are rapidly turning into heroes!
Photos: Rivers of mud
descend from the potato field.
