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| Self Portait |
I was used to no weather in L.A. Warm, warmer, windy, dry, drier;
used to the sound of the skin crackling
off my bones during the Santa Anas. Used
to wistfully wishing for rain, perhaps a little fog, anything with some moisture in it ... even June gloom... gone by noon. I love rain. I missed it.
My shrivelled skin yearned for an El
Nino or La Nina or a whatever; any meteorological fluctuation delivering H2O. I was dehydrated, a cranky prune. Rivers shrank. Crops suffered. In January Governor Jerry Brown officially declared a drought
emergency. This is the driest California has been.... EVER... seriously... EVER... at least
since records were kept. By then
husband and I relocated to the land of life-giving moisture... England. Be careful what you wish for.
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| Another River Behaving |
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| A Gorgeous River Behaving |
We are in Somerset, surrounded by the Levels; low
lying moors, once covered by water. Through the centuries
they were drained to create prime pasture land.
The Romans, some Monks, and finally 17th Century Dutch engineers (when
you've got a flooding problem, you always call the Dutch) helped make the
area habitable by creating a network of drainage ditches. Now the place is criss-crossed with them, and with beautiful picture post-card rivers and streams. These fertile wetland moors are dotted with hills. In bygone times one of them was thought to be Avalon, the island
of Arthurian legend. We are in a very beautiful
and mystical place, living happily ever
after.... until...
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| Arthur Slept Here |
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| Mystical Husband in Glastonbury |
The wettest
winter.... EVER... seriously... EVER... at least since records were kept, so says the news. People tell us it's never like this, like they're somehow
personally responsible for the inclement conditions. We tell them we like the wet; that we were parched for too long. They look at us like we're crazy.
Every week brings
a new storm, fog, gale force winds, and torrents of rain. Fields where those killer cows maliciously
grazed (see the killer cow blog) are now lakes; the cattle moved elsewhere.
The sheep from the field next door disappeared...
just disappeared. One morning they were
there, that afternoon they were gone. Not
victims of alien abduction, but ferried away to drier land.
Penny
the peahen is shed-bound. Only the birds spiraling to 'catch
the wave' of an updraft seem thrilled by 60 mph winds.
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| Fogged In Sheep |
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| Peahen In Hiding |
To the amusement of many husband and I remain
car-free. We walk everywhere,
at least we used to walk everywhere.
'Everywhere' is now covered in water.
Our perambulations have shrunk. Recently we walked to the farmhouse store for
some fresh local veg. Plodding through
the sopped and spud-less potato field, I hooked my wellie in a bramble springe
and took a header in the muck and slop.
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| Overflowing River Parrett |
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| Grazing Land Meets River Parrett |
Now we use the bus.
But even buses
cannot go where they used to. We went to
Langport on some errands this week and found the River Parrett no longer a
river but a lake threatening to encroach on the town. Sandbags everywhere. The normal bus route was aborted because of flooding beyond town. The military
were brought in to install pontoon bridges to nearby villages 'islandized' by
the rising waters.
Someone borrowed a
boat from our neighbour to travel the flooded fields nearby. Good idea.
Forget the car. Amazon
UK carries the Intex Explorer K2
Kayak two-person inflatable canoe with oars and a pump for just a hundred and
thirty pounds. We could paddle to
Portugal in that thing. Then the police warned people
to stay off the roads unless their trip was absolutely essential.
Does a driver delivering a kayak to a house on a hill qualify as essential? Maybe, since this last weekend all train service to the area was cancelled due to flooding and landslides.
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| Suicidal Humboldts |
Relentless foul
weather is bound to have an effect on the collective psyche. People suffer from Seasonal Affective
Disorder, feeling low because of perpetual wet and gray. I don't have it yet, I was fried by the sun
for so long, I am still happily rehydrating. The wet doesn't bother me. I still like the rain. Not so for the poor Humboldt Penguins at the
Scarborough Zoo in Yorkshire. Humboldts are natives
of the Pacific Coast of Peru and Chile.
They're used to sunlight. There isn't much of the stuff around. A general malaise settled over the group, one
the disheartened penguins couldn't seem to shake. They are currently being treated with anti-depressants.
The Levels have been flooding since December. Prince
Charles, a feverish environmentalist, popped down last week to take a look, and
pledged personal funds to help flooded farmers. He was overheard saying:
"There's nothing like a jolly good disaster to get people to start doing
something. The tragedy is that nothing happened for so long."
Shortly thereafter, like the voles and other rodents flushed out of
their natural habitat by the storms, Lord Smith, the head of the Environmental
Agency, appeared, having at last realized something was amiss in Somerset.
David Cameron popped in for a look-see, though he neglected to mention
exactly where he'd be, fearing his photo-op would be sunk by angry
residents.
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| A Vole |
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| Lord Smith |
It's incredibly
sad. Fields farmed and houses lived in by families
for
centuries have been abandoned. This
past weekend promised more evacuations due to rising water. New flood warnings. Gale force winds. There is simply nowhere for all this water to go.
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| Fog Marching Towards Us |
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| Stormy Sunset |
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| On Its Way |
The weather is certifiable. The room in which I write this blog has two windows: one faces north,
the other south. A couple of days ago there was a torrential downpour
from an ominous slate grey sky lashing against the south window.
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| And So Is This |
Out the north window, blue sky and sun shone
on a patch of snowdrops and crocuses poking their heads out of the
soil. Meanwhile, it's so unseasonably warm that confused daffodils have started to bloom.
In the midst of
everything intrepid farmers carry on, as evidenced by an announcement over the weekend in the British Farmers Weekly. After a long search they had finally
identified Britain's Sexiest Farmers, a photogenic pig farmer and a gorgeous blond agricultural student, both from flooded Central Somerset.
Anything bringing attention to the situation is good. I write, no longer dehydrated in Los Angeles, but soggy in Somerset next door to the most fetching
farmers in all of the UK.
