A river runs through it...

[jadesfire]

...or rather, over it. The picture under the cut at the bottom is the view from our flat at 9pm today. It hasn't rained at all, but the water's been steadily rising and rising towards our garage. Fortunately we live on the first floor, above the garage, so we're fine, but there's lots of damageable stuff in the garage and I worry about these things.



2.30 pm
Me: It's getting higher
Him: Is it?
Me: Yes!
Him: It'll be fine.

3.30 pm
Me: It's getting higher still
Him: Is it?
Me: Yes!
Him: Hmmmm...it is isn't it. We'd better keep an eye on it.

4.30 pm
Me: It's still getting higher *worries*
Him [reasonable]: Well, it's rising really slowly. Nothing's going to happen until this evening. It's only coming up at about 1 foot an hour and it's at least 30 foot from the house. We're only going to be out a few hours.

8.30 pm (back from church
Me: EEEEK!!! Water!!!
Him: Hmmmm...it is a little high, isn't it?
Me: *fretting* What about the garage?
Him: It probably won't flood but we'd better go do something about it anyway.

I hate it when he comes over all reasonable on me.


So we got everything off the ground in the garage, and will just have to wait and see what happens. I'm still worrying, but Oxford's missed the worst of the flooding while all the surrounding towns are waist-deep in water, so I've got little to complain about.

If you see a request for snorkels go up here, you'll know it all went horribly wrong...




To put this in perspective - you see the pale tree in the middle of the river? The lawn goes about another four feet beyond that, and there should be a field on the other side...

Comments

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

I think you timed it just right... The usual is happening - everyone's blaming the Government and Global Warming (possibly with good reason on both accounts); the canoeists are both having fun and working hard as the only people who can get about properly; everyone's doing a good job of not panicking and is putting everything up on bricks (or some folding crates and an overturned plastic bin in our case :D); and they're starting to talk about the Blitz spirit, which I always think is a good sign. Everyone's upset and many are devastated, but I think they're getting used to it - this is the 3rd or 4th year that we've had bad flooding.

It's fine here - the water seems to have reached a settled point. The ground we're on is a fraction higher than the nature reserve opposite and so it seems to be flowing that way, but if we get another big surge, the garden's going under. With all the trees and shrubs poking out from the water, it looks more like the Everglades than Oxford!