Flooded?

[Headfry]

I hope all the grapes are safe and dry!
They are expecting Oxford city center to flood today!!!!!
This is JULY!!!

[moggssue]

Hi Headfry - dry-ish here so far. Actually had a day of sunshine yesterday, perfect timing for my Race For Life!! It is raining again today but we're not flooded - my heart is with all those who are

[bubblewrap]

My allotment not flooded but very soggy good thing runner beans going very well(15lbsyesterday)but Iwill need 2 or 3 dry days before I can do any work on it.

[The Doctor]

It took me five hours to do a 10 mile journey home on friday. Swindon was very flooded, but fortunately most of the water has drained quite quickly, unlike the Gloucester area.

During the journey home, I went past my lottie site because of detours and popped in for a pee on the compost heap. (I'd been in the car 2 hours by then). Virtually the whole site was under water, and that explains why my spuds and shallots have gone soft and rotten over the past few weeks.

Took me another three hours from there, with a twenty minute break for a coffee at one point!

[shirlthegirl43]

Madmax and I are thinking of all the grapes out there who are suffering with this heavy rain. We are both fed up with the wet, miserable weather, but thankful that it seems to be much drier here than other places.

[sweetcorn]

We had 70 stranded motorists in our village on Friday night. 2 stayed with us. Just up the road from us, Evesham, Tewkesbury and Gloucester are suffering really badly. Makes me feel v. grateful it didn't happen here and so sorry for those whose lives have been devastated. We have had about 3 hours without rain, but it's just started again, and heavily too. Curse that jet stream!!!!! Keep warm and dry, grapes.

[trousers]

we are dry at home, but all the roads are starting to flood on routes to gloucster,and towards ross on wye and also along the wye valley,its still raining and has been all day!!!

[NOG]

Hope all is well and you are safe.

But you have to blame the Americans. They put a cutting of Bart Simpson next to the Cerne Abbas fertility giant in Dorset.

The Pagan Federation asked us to pray for rain to wash it away. And I don't surpose he thought that there were that many of us in the country.

[rustylady]

Been raining on and off forever here in Suffolk it seems. Thankfully we've had no serious flooding (The local council and Anglian Water seem to have sorted out the problems we had over the last five or six years regarding drainage, after some serious expenditure and a lot of disruption for new works). My lottie is wet but not flooded, but my neighbour one plot down (and quite a bit lower) is absolutely waterlogged.

[Earthbabe]

Fortunately we are ok here, the lottie is a bit damp in places, especially down the bottom nearer the stream, but the rest is fine. The weeds are also doing well and I'm not getting on top of digging them up in all this rain. Plus I got a nasty bite last week.

We are counting our blessings and have stopped moaning about our poor crops. Our thoughts are with those who are suffering in this weather.

[muckdiva]

Very bad around here, (between Banbury and Stratford on Avon) but we were lucky; neither house or office were actually at risk. Lots of fire engines in the village pumping out flooded houses lower down the road though.

Managed to write off my car driving through water though. Be warned, diesels do not like it.

[Matt.]

Sadly my plot is very flooded as is everyones on the Westend allotments in Abingdon. The culprit is not the Thames but the tiny River Ock which flows right past the site. On Saturday afternoon I popped down to find the whole site under one to two feet of water.

...the day later it properly flooded

On Sunday morning we found that the river had risen by many more feet - six at a guess. The surrounding fields that had been dry the day before were one massive lake. The levels had risen so high and sadly several houses on the estate where I live were flooded. The roads were impassable but we managed to walk around the floods to look at the rest of town.

From Sunday afternoon the River Ock started to fall. Its going to take several more days to drain fully. I might try and wade through the water to the allotment later today to take pictures and see what has/hasn't floated away!

I think by the time the water has gone it will have been too long and everything will be wasted. I don't know how long plants can last but five days is probably pushing it. I'd only just started to harvest veggies and everthing was going so well in my first year.

However, you've got to look on the positive side and the fact my house was dry is the main thing. Veggies will grow again and I've had a great time getting where I did and will do so again next year! I've definitely caught the allotmenting bug and the few veggies I've had are like a teaser for next year!

There are pictures of the floods on my blog and I'll add more as and when. Fingers crossed for those downstream that you don't get flooded too.

[ian]

best wishes

I know I have been moaning about the weather half serious half in jest. However the recent floods puts matters into perspective. I can live without a few failed crops on my allotment, but some professional growers will have lost livelyhoods, and many home owners will be living with this devastation for months if not years to come. To anyone who has been flooded- Good luck and best wishes for the months ahead.

[seasprout]

Big Hug.

To matt, sending you best wishes and luck for the future on your plot.
Hope everything works out ok.

[Headfry]

My thoughts are with you Matt, don't give up!