Floods

I know I've not blogged for a while - sorry!

This week has been incredibly manic, mainly at work, but also in private life as well...

Firstly - the rain... We have been incredibly lucky in Bristol - we've managed to avoid the worst of the bad weather, but getting home on Friday night was a bit tricky. Not in the 10 hour journey that some people have had, but, for me, the half hour wait for a train to take me to Filton, after my train to Parkway vanished off the board with no announcement (and having to explain to the people who were already on the train that the reason for the hideous overcrowding was that this did appear to be the last train to leave Bristol Temple Meads!) However, I do have a lot of admiration for the platform staff at BTM - they were trying to cope with a lot of angry and upset people, without having any real information themselves, and they kept calm in the face of a lot of provocation! (I do imagine that I might have a different perspective on this if I'd had to join the queue that was stretching the whole length of platform 3 to get a chit that would then let me join the queue for a taxi...)

Saturday saw us having a lie-in for the first time in a while - very much needed - and then, in the late afternoon, heading out in glorious sunshine to Faringdon in Oxfordshire for Paul Cornell's birthday party. Now, given the weather (and the fact that my colleague's wife had called in the afternoon from Swindon to say that the M4 had been shut), we had contacted Paul to ask if Faringdon was ok and if the party was still on. All fine, we were reassured, he had even driven to Oxford and back that morning. Now, what Paul didn't know was that, although the road to Oxford was fine, there were a few puddles on the ground on the other roads leading to Faringdon. I had already done an internet search, and found that the direct route, going round Swindon, was right out (with 2 hour tail backs on the Saturday afternoon due to closed roads),but the M4 was still open. No worries, we could come off the M4 at Junction 14, and go via Wantage (which was still above water at that point), going across country from there (which was lucky, as the AA's non-motorway directions sent us through Tewkesbury...).

First part of the plan came off without any hitches whatsoever. A clear run along the M4, with a nice quick journey through and out the other side of Wantage. We then followed the AA directions, heading out through East and West Challow and towards Stanford in the Vale. Which is where we saw our first "real" flooding - there was a "no through" sign on the road going forwards, and a turning to the left that was about 1/4 foot deep. Now, any sensible travellers at that point would have turned round, and taken the long route to Abingdon and cut across there. But not us adventurous types in our highly rugged Fiat Punto. We were debating whether to ignore the sign (how bad could it be?), when a car came the other way (i.e. passing the no through sign), stopped and the window opened. The driver inside explained that the road was passable, and only flooded in four places. He then looked at the car and said "you might get your feet wet...". So, with this vote of confidence ringing in our ears, we decided to press on. Not long thereafter, we saw the water stretching across the road, and decided to try to get round the water by turning off towards Goosey (when I can figure out how to do it, I'm going to get Google Maps to show our twisting route...) This was our second mistake. As we turned off the A road and onto the twisty, high hedged B road, my aim (as map reader) was to get us round Stanford. Unfortunately, what I didn't register was that we were also following the line of the river Ock, which was now slightly larger than the little line that appeared on the map. When we came up to the first flood across the road, it didn't appear that deep, and we saw a junction ahead that looked like it would take us away from the worst of the flooding. So we forged on through (big splash!) and turned away from Charney Bassett (at this point we are heading further and further away from Faringdon...) The roads were getting smaller and twistier, and turning round points were getting fewer and further between. But, hardy souls that we are, we weren't going to let a spot of water trouble us, and kept going through floods that were getting deeper. The one that made me realise that I was actually getting quite scared was where we could see the current flowing across the road, and felt it buffeting the car. However, at this point, we didn't have any real option but to keep going and see if we could either find a spot where we could turn round without going onto a verge (most of which resembled swamps) or find some way of getting out of the floods. My aim on mapreading was to try to find a way of getting us to an A road, any A road, where, we believed, the roads would be in better condition, and we might even have diversions in place... However, there were a few little puddles that were in our way! We ended up following another car - a 4X4 - he would go through ahead, and then, when he reached the next dry point, we would start going through. Even watching him, it was very nerve wracking not being sure where the road would suddenly dip, and we'd have no choice but to swim! Unfortunately, this state of affairs came to an abrupt end when, at a bend in the road, he decided to turn round. It was at that point that we thought that if a 4x4 was having second thoughts about the depth of the water, then our little Fiat probably shouldn't attempt it. So, after he passed us (very helpfully stopping to give us directions to Uffington, where we could then cut up to Faringdon - we decided that we would not risk another cross-country run...), we got to his turning point, did a multiple pointer, and headed back through the floods. One of the puddles gave us a bit of a panic as the car slowed to an absolute crawl, and we had to give it lots of words of encouragement to get through the deepest bit. We ended up pretty much retracing our steps to Wantage, then up towards Abingdon, meaning to cut across to Kingston Bagpuize. But that road was cut off as well, and we decided not to risk it, particularly after seeing another diversion where a group of people were trying to work out how to get the tow-truck out of the floods... It was absolutely heart breaking going through some of these villages, and seeing the flooded bungalows and houses. It's very difficult for me to avoid flashbacks to when Wellesbourne flooded in 1998.

However, once we had got onto the main road to Oxford, bypassed the city, and then got onto the A420 down to Faringdon, it was suddenly plain sailing. We were even able to scoff at the few floods that we did have to drive through - why, you could see the white lines on the road - not deep at all!

Finally, only an hour later than we intended, we arrived in Faringdon, in the pouring rain. Fortunately, the owners of the lovely B&B that we stayed in (Livingston House) were very quick to let us in and show us to our room. (the Stephen King room - behind the door was a bookshelf containing a vast collection of (mainly) Stephen King books, apparantly belonging to the owner's son)

A quick change from John later, and we were back out down to the Portwell Bar where Paul's party was in full swing. It was a great evening - I had fully expected that I would spend a lot of the time sitting in the corner people watching, as I would know very few people there. Instead, not only did I recognise a lot of people from when we went to the Faringdon Arts Festival, but it was such an easy going atmosphere that we felt able to sit down and join in conversations. The evening passed in a haze of good company, thai curry and cider (and then a "cornetto" of red wine and a sip of the nicest rum and coke I have ever tried). We ended up getting back to the B&B just after 2. As breakfast was at 8-9, I had set the alarm for 8...

In fact, I actually woke up closer to 7, without too bad a headache. For some reason, my body decided that it had had enough sleep, and it wasn't going to let me doze for the alarm clock. So I picked up "The Stand", and managed to get nearly 200 pages into it before breakfast time (closer to 9 than 8...). Breakfast was just what I needed - cereal, toast, bacon, orange juice and coffee (the full English was available, and eagerly taken by John and the other two guests (also from Paul's party), but I have long since learned that my stomach can tolerate bacon after alcohol, but otherwise nothing cooked for breakfast! Then to the town triangle to meet up with Paul and the other survivors from the party. We had a great second breakfast, sat outside on the cobbled pavement, enjoying the warm (ish) air, the vague attempts of the sun to break through the clouds, the bell ringers, and the tractor taking various lambs to market. After a hot chocolate, with the most lurid marshmallows you could imagine, and another bacon sandwich, plus a good couple of hours of chatting, we decided to part and attempt the journey home. As we were going to be going via Oxford, Paul asked if we and another car could give a lift to a couple of bods who were needing to get the train home. Off we went, and, after searching for a useable road into Oxford, we discovered on arrival at the station that there were no trains running, and no alternative transport available. Fortunately for three of the folks that had been given lifts to the station, they lived in Bath, so we offered them a lift back on our way through to Bristol. The capacity of a Fiat Punto just about fits four adult males and one adult female, all slightly hungover...

All in all, a weekend to remember - fantastic fun, and the adventure made it all the more lasting :-)

Still to come - the rest of my week (I didn't think that Saturday would take up *this* much space - well done for getting to the bottom of it!), plus the story that is now a whole paragraph long.....