#oneweek the rain

When that I was and a little tiny boy,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
A foolish thing was but a toy,
For the rain it raineth every day.

Nothing is so sad as the sight of Dino Boy quarantined inside, nose glued to the window watching for a break in the rain, except maybe the sight of me having pushed a buggy over a muddy hill for an hour as I walked the dog.

The sights, the smells and the sounds have been out of the ordinary. Our daily routine veered away from the muddy hill and down to the ford to check the progress. The bird song was drowned out by the gushing noise from the drainage ditches along the lane as the flood water headed to the Loddon.







The babbling brook that we could paddle across in the summer has turned into a thundering watercourse, racing along manically. Everyday we watched to see if we could turn the corner of the lane to spy the depth marker. Some days it disappeared entirely.

The flood plane seems to be appropriately fluid here. For the old houses on the lane it is at risk enough for the environment agency to levy protection money, but across an invisible boundary meters away where they wanted to build the risk was of no consequence. strange then hoe the construction had to stop for five days as raw effluent gushed into the half built houses. Local politics, national politics and geopolitical posturing - it rains on our parade.

As the winter draws to a close, and the first blossom is promising the end to the rain quarantine. We look forward to spring, but maybe a little snow to follow - who knows?