The day of the flood

The forecast for last Friday was pretty poor, with named storm Babette threatening much of the country with flooding. It's important to put the relatively minor problems it brought to us into perspective: elsewhere in the UK a handful of people lost their lives in flooding incidents, and very many lost possessions and the use of their homes for months ahead.

We woke early to the sound of rain drumming on the skylights, and outside Andy the stonemason arrived as daylight broke, quickly assessed the situation, and within 5 minutes left. I then discovered that in the dining area our apples and oranges were floating in the fruit bowl, with water dripping from the ceiling around a light fitting onto the dining room table, something that years ago happened to the same table in our Heaton Moor home when a tap washer failed in the bathroom above. Having searched out buckets and pans, and dropped the light fitting to provide an easy route for the water, I had to find some rectangular containers (roasting tins did the trick) as water started dripping from the joint of one of the window reveals and and the frame.





We had previously known that we had what we all thought was a minor problem associated with the skylight above the dining table, and Pat had been to attend to it and was waiting to be sure it was fixed (!) before arranging for re-decoration. Now we were in a different ball-park. After lunch I went out in the still pouring rain and surveyed the green roof and the drain from a ladder. A piece of the green roof membrane was partly obstructing the outlet, with the result that about 75mm of water was sitting on the flat roof. Theoretically this should not be a problem, but likely one of the welded joints in the tanking material has failed. Moving the membrane allowed the bulk of the water to drain away.

Outside in the road, water had gathered for about forty metres around the first bend, meaning that only 4x4s, trucks and tractors could go that way to Hendrerwydd.


And the view over the field from our bedroom showed the amount of water the land was holding:


By the end of the afternoon the situation had improved for us as the rain eased. Pat has subsequently visited and, as we had hoped, has taken responsibility for fitting a different design of skylight and having the roof re-sealed, with subsequent re-plastering and re-decoration following on. We're hoping for a completely dry couple of days in a month or so to allow that to happen.

In other news, we have an appointment for next Monday for Chris to fit the woodburning stove, and I am pressing on with sorting out the garage/workshop and shipping container, having brought the last couple of trailer-loads of stuff from the Gallagher's container and handed back the key. Now we have truly moved in!







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