In the midst of this glorious sunshine, the heavens opened last night and we had about 4” of rain in twenty minutes. S and I were at Ikea, buying picture frames, bickering about the merits of wood coloured v. silver, when our argument was interrupted by the sound of very angry rain on the skylights. By the time we were driving home, the rain was over the kerbs in a lot of places and there were a lot of very disgruntled people walking around in very soggy shorts. We drove into our street to find half our neighbours clustered at the bottom, which is the most people I have ever seen out at the same time. It turns out that the drain at the end was clogged up, couldn’t take the sheer volume of water pouring down, and so flooded the bottom end of the road. Two people’s houses had water in their hallways, and someone else’s car was submerged in water up to the wheel tops. By the time we got there, one neighbour had donned his diving suit (what resourcefulness!) and climbed into the drain to unblock it, so the water had drained away. One of the guys had taken photos though, and it was quite amazing to see how much water had collected, and then disappeared again, in such a short space of time.
We offered help to the neighbours, but unless we could magically dry carpets with a flick of our wands, we weren’t really much use. Their two children seemed quite excited by it, anyway, so at least someone enjoyed the experience.
All I could think of, though, in the midst of our neighbours having wet carpets and cars that wouldn’t start, is that our house is having a valuator come round today to assess it for our remortgage, and if we’d been flooded then it wouldn’t have gone down too well. Doreen two doors down says that this has only happened in the street twice in 52 years, but I bet they wouldn’t have believed it. Selfish, yes, but I did praise our foresight (well, we can claim we had some anyway) in buying at the top of the road. Otherwise we might have been sitting around last night, wearing our wetsuits, watching as a friendly duck or two floated past the TV.
We offered help to the neighbours, but unless we could magically dry carpets with a flick of our wands, we weren’t really much use. Their two children seemed quite excited by it, anyway, so at least someone enjoyed the experience.
All I could think of, though, in the midst of our neighbours having wet carpets and cars that wouldn’t start, is that our house is having a valuator come round today to assess it for our remortgage, and if we’d been flooded then it wouldn’t have gone down too well. Doreen two doors down says that this has only happened in the street twice in 52 years, but I bet they wouldn’t have believed it. Selfish, yes, but I did praise our foresight (well, we can claim we had some anyway) in buying at the top of the road. Otherwise we might have been sitting around last night, wearing our wetsuits, watching as a friendly duck or two floated past the TV.
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