For many, many years this village had a big November 5th firework display but typically since I moved here it's been cancelled and won't be happening ever again according to the man planning this years event. (For readers from overseas - we celebrate the failure to blow up the houses of Parliament in the C17 by have fireworks, bonfires and an effigy of Guy Fawkes!)
The field where they are held it is a school and village playing/football field and totally waterlogged this year even before the village was flooded and cut off except for trucks and tractors again last Thursday - the second time in two weeks.
So F for Floods. I'm thankful that I've never lived anywhere that's flooded although I got a bit worried in our first October at the smallholding when we had a huge amount of rain that sat on the land all around the house and into our new polytunnel. Colin later dug a trench through the garden and put in land drains which took the water away and into a ditch and we never had a problem again. Our 5 acres had ditches all round but we were on the 'high' point and on the watershed and water ran one way at the front of the house down into the Hundred river at Knodishall and via a sluice into the sea at Thorpeness and at the end of the field it ran the other way down to Friston and into the Alde.
Ordnance Survey maps are good for following the river course and it's often odd to find exactly which way rivers run often - looking like the 'wrong' way -and where they join other rivers.
Floods here were gone by Friday morning and apart from the mud on the road and the grass flattened on each verge you wouldn't know there had been a foot of water in two places along the road.
Bottom of my road when clear
The water is back in the little river as it should be
Although things would be better if the ditch/river was cleared of grass, nettles etc further along!
It's under there somewhere.
Mud shows where this other bit of road around the corner was also a foot deep
Further along this road above, the river runs under another road and is nice and clear of debris and running well
This "Water Meadow" is usually a field with horses
The road where they got marooned in the car still gets flooded and was very bad again this time.
Back Tomorrow
Sue
It was very noisy round here Saturday evening. Some torrential rain didn't seem to have dampened anyone's (is that apostrophe in the right place?) spirits. xx
ReplyDeleteI was expecting to hear fireworks but only heard 3 rockets from 3 different places and then nothing - very odd
DeleteI expect you were keeping the home fires burning Sue! Luckily for us storm Ciaran was not as feisty as predicted. Most of the schools had been shut, and I managed my early morning commute to the hospital without incident.
ReplyDeleteWe didn't get the windy weather that was forecast thankfully. No sign of water on roads now
DeleteI wonder why we celebrate the lack of an explosion with explosions, and why we burn an effigy of a criminal who wasn't burnt at all but tortured and hanged. It's a funny old country.
ReplyDeleteWe are - but I used to love watching fireworks
DeleteOur village fireworks were cancelled too (insurance issues) and many fields round here were flooded.
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping that someone else will organise some fireworks here - I love them
DeleteTerribly noisy here in Tod, I thought there was a range of noiseless fireworks but obviously there wasn't enough to go round.
ReplyDeleteI like fireworks but I know many don't
DeleteWe haven’t heard any fireworks this year and I haven’t seen any fireworks for sale either. Are they now banned from sale to the public? When I was about seven years old a school friend was badly burnt by a randomly exploding firework and my mum was on the operating team that patched him up with skin grafts - he continued having skin grafts as he grew up. That experience obviously put me off fireworks for ever. So grateful for our water meadows and Wildbrooks which are doing what they have done for millennia and so far absorbing all the rain. We walked around the nature reserve yesterday and there was water, water everywhere. The predators such as kestrels and owls are having a field day as all the small mammals have been forced from their nests and burrows up onto dry land - although I imagine lots have drowned too, we even saw a swimming deer! Sarah in Sussex
ReplyDeleteI saw them for sale in a couple of shops in town, but didn't here many.
DeleteNo idea what happened here. I didn't hear a single firework. Not in the run up to the 5th either. Apparently the next village over had an outstanding display as usual. They used silent fireworks. So all of the ooh and ahh and none of the noise.
ReplyDeleteI think bonfire night is one of our more eccentric peculiarities. Only in Britain would we celebrate the barbaric torturing of a man who wanted to blow up the monarch.
It certainly is an odd tradition when you stop to think about it
DeleteYou should’ve come here! Fireworks on 3rd,4th,5th,6th! And constant noise from around 6pm until midnight! I’m not joking when I say it was like living in a war zone! We sat and said, ‘ All that money going up in smoke!’ as well as feeling sorry for all the animals around. I think some people have more money than sense! 😫
ReplyDeleteGoodness, that's a lot of people with fireworks - all pretty quiet here
DeleteFireworks here throughout the weekend. In the past we have heard them for about three weeks around 5th November. Luckily that seems to be passing.
ReplyDeleteEven when we lived in town we didn't hear them that much
DeleteWe didn't have any fireworks here either apart from the big local event which I will share on my blog this afternoon (under B for Bonfire!) . The ground was absolutely sodden from the outset. With all the rain we've had there has been some local flooding of roads but fortunately our street has been fine. I really do feel for those suffering from storm Ciaran and the aftermath. It was horrendous.
ReplyDeleteAwful for people in the Channel Islands who seemed to get the worst of it this time
DeleteI totaled my minivan once by driving through a flooded street. I didn't think it was as deep as it turned out to be! I have difficulty driving through wet pavement now and hate driving in heavy rains. Luckily, since I am retired, I don't have to.
ReplyDeleteSo many people got stuck in floods - I don't even bother to try if it looks too deep - not worth it
DeleteI live across the pond in Pennsylvania and in a Valley. Saucon Valley. We have to drive up our driveway to get to the main road. Our area here is criss crossed with streams that lead to two rivers. It’s worrisome when we have rain for days at a time even though we have two culverts taking water away from our house they have backed up twice, flooding our garages, sunroom and family room. What a mess that was! A memory I will never forget unless dementia sets in.
ReplyDelete“Anonymous” in previous comment is me, Susan Zarzycki ❤️
ReplyDeleteFloodwater always leaves such a horrible mess - there's always so much dirt and debris. So many people have it happening far too often
DeleteToo bad about the fireworks, always so beautiiiful.
ReplyDeleteWorst flood I was ever in was Hurricane Sandy here in NY. I will never forget seeing cars and buildings floating away in the storm surge. Terribly frightening. My house is raised, so I only got water in the lower entry area, foiled by rolling up evry beach towel I own and packing it against the door sill. I was in another pretty bad storm surge [I live on a fairly small barrier island] when my kids were small. It was unexpected, we were out at the afternoon movies. On the way home the roads had about 6-8" of roiling water, but my Jeep powered thru. I was cared bec of having a carload of small children w me.
Very worrying when children are in the car.
DeleteWe had a jeep cherokee for a few years it went through and over anything but expensive to run and insure now compared to my little car
I have always driven Jeeps. As you say, they go thru or over anything. After Sandy most ''off road'' SUVs and all cars were not drivable bec they got wet and were catching on fire. But my friend and I had big Jeeps, they were fine, gas guzzlers tho they are.
DeleteMy favourite wrong-way river is the Yorkshire River Derwent which starts hear Scarbrough and flows many miles sount-west rather than into the sea.
ReplyDeleteThat's a big river and even stranger than our little streams and ditches seemingly going uphill!
DeleteYou are fortunate to live where flooding does not impact your home. I am the same. Water views are wonderful. Rivers, lakes and ocean. That said, I want to be high above the water on a cliff where flooding does not occur.
ReplyDeleteI'm very glad I'm up above road and water level.
DeleteSo happy to read that your home was safe from flooding. Too bad about the fireworks though.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.
Sorry to hear the fireworks were cancelled. It's always really difficult to describe Guy Fawke's Day to Americans lol. They always give me such a strange look! It happens to be my anniversary too - decided on that day so I wouldn't forget it lol.
ReplyDeleteI haven't had to deal with flooding really. Last summer at my son's house there was a flood. It was shocking to look out the window and see how quickly the water had come up without us noticing...and how quickly it went back down once the rain stopped. We just kept ourselves at home for a day and it was done and over with.
ReplyDelete