Stratford UNDER Avon: The Flood

In the past twenty four hours, two months worth of rain has fallen in the UK. The Met office said "it was the worst deluge in living memory". Here in Warwickshire, one of the worst affected counties, many towns are totally submerged under many feet of water and roads in/out are impassable. These pictures of Warwickshire and Gloucestershire (Cotswolds) give a sense of the floods. The cost of the floods? 2 billion!

Stratford has been hard hit too. The River Avon, which runs through the center of town, broke its banks yesterday afternoon and rose more than 5 feet. The flooding caused a lot of damage to the town alongside the banks and the theatres are closed. Luckily, even though we live very near to the river in the center of town, we are on a slightly higher level.... however, that didn't stop us looking at the river and worrying that all our recent building work would have an unwelcome water feature running through it! The pictures show how the town was transformed into one great lake. Hobbes had a great time swimming in it though, of course!

My drive home from work last night was more brutal than normal. The usual 1.5 hour trip took four hours because the main motorway (M40) was under water, so I weaved north on tiny roads through towns in Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire. Some poor folks had been stranded on the M5 for 15 hours. Most main roads were closed at multiple points, so it was a case of just pot-luck to see if I could get through the Cotswolds to Stratford or not. I finally got home to find my sister in law and her little boy, B & N, taking refuge at our house because their home just outside Warwick was completely cut off.

But every "cumulonimbus calvus" has a sliver lining. The torrential rain and road closures meant that Stratford was relatively quiet for........ the release of the last Harry Potter book! Yes, despite the horid drive home and being up for 22 hours, I was there in the queue at midnight to collect my copy. Those of us that braved the weather for our copies last night can confidently call ourselves true Potter fans!