To watch a river in full spate, as I have recently where the River Avon flows through my village, is to be awed, frightened and compulsively drawn all at the same time. There is something mesmeric about fierce water.
Back in 1968, when I was on a course at the BBC's training centre, a severe thunderstorm got trapped in the Vale of Evesham, bouncing back and forth off the Cotswolds and the Malvern Hills. The next day, Evesham was awash and the Avon had burst its banks. Down on the sports field, I found a boat. Dressed to kill, I was off across the open water. I couldn't swim but who cared?
Floods are a novelty for some, a chance for adventure, as this one was for me. Earlier today a police helicopter was hovering over the village apparently searching for two youngsters missing from a dinghy. I thought the flood was fun back when I was nineteen. I was stupid.
Pixie finds this photo very amusing. Already I was training my jackets for a life with miss-shapen, bulging pockets and the comb-over hairstyle goes a long way to explain my lack of success on the dance floor although doubtless there were other factors.
6 comments:
The amount of water surrounding your and B's abodes is horrifying. How many times I walked over the Eckington Bridge to get to Evesham and it's completely submerged! And Tewkesbury. Hope you stay safe and dry depsite the massive flooding.
You can't dance?
Methinks you'd have done well at Oxford, Dave, though in a punt rather than on the dance floor with that barnet. Mind you, I thought my beard was cool, until people started calling me Kenny (Everett).
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B- I had a "bowl" cut once that, along with my rimless glasses, prompted people to stop me in the grocery store to tell me I looked like John Denver...not quite the look I was after.
stay safe. water is mesmerising in rivers, but less so when it's rampaging through one's house.
Thanks you all for the comments.
Never tried a punt, Peter, probably a bit top heavy.
Hmm, John Denver. I can see that might have been less than welcome! Pleasant enough chap, though, I thought but didn't take to his music.
I agree, Hayden. I had raw sewage under the floorboards in my house last year but that doesn't compare to the wholesale destruction and misery that goes with the sort of floods we've seen this month.
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