Speculation, Fact and Fiction

Driving into Oxford yesterday, and on the train to London, I was seeing remarkable amounts of flooding in the fields. Now, in the lower-lying bits of the county, water meadow isn't just a picturesque phrase, it's a practical description of what happens by the tail-end of most winters along the tributaries flowing into the Thames. But it's a surprise to see such extensive expanses of water in early January rather than say, at the end of February - the month known as 'fill-dyke' to our ancestors, after all.

And the Cotswolds are utterly sodden too. I got home to find the local news full of flooding in Witney and surrounding villages. Again, not unknown but not that common either.

Mind you, I have no sympathy with people who ignore the signs saying 'road closed' and then drive into the thirty-plus yard stretch of foot-deep water, in one case moving a barrier to do so, who are then surpised and affronted when their car conks out. 'The council should do something!' demanded one such doombrain. Like what? Turn the rain off? Take your car keys away until you grow some common sense?

Given the forecasts and the time of year, it's going to get worse before it gets better. And on the domestic front, it does mean muddy cat-footprints will continue across the kitchen floor, on the bathmat, on duvet covers, across the desk, on the windowsills...

But looking on the bright side, who knows, we may see the hosepipe ban that's currently in force lifted soon!