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 C16 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
When I spoke to eldest daughter a couple of weeks ago after the first flood she said ” am I imagining it or when I was little did Dad, me and M – her brother – get stuck in some floods between Finningham and Wickham Skeith?” (That was just a few miles from where we lived then and where I am now) “Yes, you did” I said, but where was I that day and how did they get home? Neither of us had the vaguest idea.
The road where they got marooned in the car still gets flooded and was very bad again this time.
Back Tomorrow
Sue
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