Kent

This is the river Kent, pictured from the car park outside the office in which I work.

I've been told before that it's the fastest flowing river in England but this was subsequently corrected by a colleague who told me it's the fastest rising. Now that I can believe; when I arrived at the office the level of the river was seven or eight feet below the path. In this picture, taken a few hours later, it has just covered it.

Later on in the afternoon, it would be halfway up the railings. A couple of times a year it covers them completely.

It's quite absorbing to stand watching that mass of water move past. It's not splashy and noisy, but waxy with a quiet, monumental power. Today I wonder about all of the earth that had been washed down from the hills to be carried out on to Morecambe Bay, and I thought about just how often it rains, and then I thought why haven't all Cumbria's hills and mountains been washed down to bare rock?