Some boaters may know the old Duke street bridge over the Kennet & Avon in the centre of Reading. The current is always brisk through there and you need extra revs to push upstream. Well on Friday we were in Reading so we went to look at it. Here's a photo which doesn't really convey the force and speed of the water, but you get the idea. A game of pooh sticks wouldn't take long.
Our friend David aka Rainman who lives not many yards from the canal in Rickmansworth tells me that the canal is over the towpath and the adjacent Aquadrome park is flooded. CRT emails send me messages daily about floods or flood damage on the Oxford, Coventry, the Soar and the Grand Union. Our patio floods every few days and the back garden is like a wet sponge. It's all getting serious folks.
On the upside, CRT's reservoirs are mostly full, so if it ever stops raining we might be scraping the canal bed less often this summer, unless of course it's all silted up with mud washed off the fields. Anyone like to place a bet on when the next hosepipe ban comes in?
Our flooded hall carpet has now dried out even though we have had no central heating for nearly three weeks. It should have been fixed last week but there was a cock up in British Gas's booking process. Now they're coming on Wednesday - we think. They've given us 10% (£83) of the cost of the proposed power flush in recompense. We've probably spend more than that running fan heaters.
We promise to get back to Herbie soon, honest. Although we may not be able to actually go anywhere unless the rains stops and the water goes down.
Hey ho. It is what it is.
My thoughts are with all those live aboard boaters coping with it all.
2 comments:
It's awful isn't it? I usually spend two or three days a week on my barge even during the winter, but I haven't been able to do that for two months. The rain has been punishing here as well. The canal is the highest I've ever seen it and getting on and off the boat is too much of a risk, especially in the dark. So we too are just waiting until the rain stops and the water goes down. The Netherlands is good at managing water, but the systems have been struggling to keep up. We have a lot of standing water on the land.
Val, sorry to hear you have the same problem in the Netherlands. We have a plan to go out to Herbie next week for a few days although I doubt we'll be going anywhere.
Neil
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