Here comes the flood ...

"When the flood calls
You have no home, you have no walls
In the thunder crash
You're a thousand minds, within a flash
Don't be afraid to cry at what you see
The actors gone, there's only you and me
And if we break before the dawn, they'll
use up what we used to be.
 
Lord, here comes the flood
We'll say goodbye to flesh and blood
If again the seas are silent
in any still alive
It'll be those who gave their island to survive
Drink up, dreamers, you're running dry."


Peter Gabriel - Here comes the flood 


It has been raining fairly consistently now for several days and the local rivers have been gradually getting higher and higher.  The local river Avon burst its banks a little while ago, flooding the water meadows below Bath. 


I popped out after lunch today intending to get a shot of some of the flooding.  At one stage as I drove down the road alongside the river (which was already covering the road by a few inches in places), I met a steady stream of traffic coming the other way.  Its a narrow country road, so I found a place to pull in and let the vehicles come past.  One kind soul wound down his window and explained that the news had just been announced that the flood gates up river were being opened in an hour or so.  He advised me to turn around and go back the way I came, unless I wanted to risk getting stuck; and indeed, the stream of vehicles were all local folks busy moving their cars to avoid that fate.


Discretion being the better part of valour I did the same.  I pulled into the riverside pub further up the road by the local weir.   There was no sign of the weir, and the water was already overflowing the bank in places.  These two chaps were hard at work filling sandbags to protect the pub, having just had the same news about the flood gates.  


They seemed sanguine about what was about to happen.  It has happened before and it will happen again one commented.  He suggested that I might not want to hang around for too much longer, he thought where I was standing would be under a couple of feet of water later on today.


With high winds forecast and a day of heavy rain tomorrow, it sounds as though the flood water won't be abating any time soon.  Fortunately for us it is nothing like as bad as the floods the poor folks in places such as Keswick have had to endure this Winter, but even so its not good for those whose lives and livelihood are affected.