Monday 23 July 2007

Boiling water

The great British preoccupation with weather is now well and truely in overdrive, and with plenty of justification as some awful scenes unfold across the country. Worcester Park was flooded but I missed it as I was in the City and by the time I got back it had all dispersed. I gather the bridge at the station flooded (pretty much guaranteed really isn't it) and I was hearing stories from neighbours of adjoining roads with water lapping at their doors from overworked drains. In Brinkley Road the gravel alleyway at the top of the road emptied itself down as far as number 24, which is a new record. In an example of Worcester Park spirit one kindly neighbour took it on himself to scoop up many of the stones and return them to their original location. The Brinkster Clan were all impacted by floods at their allotted educational establishments but on the whole we got off lightly, apart from the having to boil water thing.

If you have any photos or stories about the recent weather then please do post them in the comments!

One curious phenomenon of this sort of event is that it does tend to bring out the kind of person, often not from these shores, who insists on contrasting our weather phenomenon with that of their chosen country with the aim of belittling the UK in some way. For example if it snows someone is bound to contrast our train system with that of Norway which (probably) runs without any hint of delay after a 15 foot snowfall. The recent earthquake in Kent was greeted by "Yes, but it was only a little one" and tornado pictures in the UK get the same response. The flooding will no doubt be greeted with stories of "That's nothing compared with New Orleans.." and the fact that we haven't had a drought/heatwave this year has spared us tales of how they keep the tube cool in New York/Teheran/[insert chosen city here]. We may not have the most extreme weather in the world but is hard to match for variety..... maybe I'll point that out next time.

Incidentally I have been in range of a 7.0 earthquake

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