Sorry to read your news Stewart. It must be really dreadful, but you appear to be showing great spirit under what must be really awful circumstances.
It's so true what Peter just commented about how we can't take anything for granted.
I tend to consider myself as very fortunate to be living on high ground, although I remember a few years ago I was touring through North Yorkshire on my way up to Scotland and about 20 miles south of Alston I ran into a very heavy storm. Water was running off the hillsides and across the road at an incredible rate. The going got tougher by the mile as the roads became more and more flooded.
When I arrived at the top of the village of Alston, I noticed there were two fire engines parked up outside a row of cottages. we decided to take a break at one of the hotels in the village and I asked a local about the fire engines and was told that the water had been running off the hillside at such a rate that the cottages on the higher ground were hit by so much water that they had flooded. Apparently it was a fairly common occurrence when the rain was extremely heavy and prolonged and that the fire crew try to limit the amount of flood damage by opening both front and rear doors of the properties and let the water just run through rather than fill up!!
