Winter wet summer dry

flooded roadA Christmas treat. Floods again.  We have had two monstrous days of storms and wind and rain. Tiles have fallen off the barn, the lean to, and the guest house.  And surprise, surprise, water.

The bread oven is a swimming, some drains are working beautifully. But my poor walnut bed is running with water.

All I could think was, thank goodness we had the major flood defences in place up in the forest.

And my first drain did work in the walnut bed.   But I need to build another. It was a waterfall roaring down from the top road to the grass on the next terrace.

And directly in the line was a poor little plant. Twas a hellebore Boughton and it was pluckily holding onto the soil while it took a battering. flooded walnut path

We couldn’t get out to see the damage as the wind was so fierce.  But a late afternoon amble brought us to the flood zone.

So with spades and forks, it was up to the forest and we extended the drainage channel so it can flow more slowly over the rocks and then meet up with the culvert on the road.

Good exercise of course, especially on Christmas Day. But it was also a bit damp and muddy.

forest floodStill, mustn’t grumble.  This is a winter wet summer dry climate.  But boy was it a wild storm.

The forecast for tomorrow is better, so hopefully I can get out and get some more drains dug.  And perhaps a spot of improving the entrance way. It still looks like a building site.