A couple of days ago I was finally getting down to the latest musing (sorry about the delay, Loyal Readers) and it would have been a follow-up to the Queen’s death, telling tales of our encounters with the King, a royal slice of cake worth thousands and how my nose made it into a Highgrove photo-opportunity. But you’ll just have to suppress your excitement because it’s been raining quite a lot, the waters have risen and I’ve a different tale to tell.
Apparently we’ve had more rain in Sussex so far this November than we usually get in the entire month. And when it rains in Sussex most of the water drains downhill to the sea, a large proportion of it coming from the Weald via the Cuckmere River. And the Cuckmere - normally a peaceful little fellow ambling through the Cuckmere Valley - gets excited and overflows, flooding the entire area. We think he’s getting his own back for not being looked after properly by the Environment Agency, whose responsibility it is despite the local farmers offering to take it on…a long saga, too long to tell here but a classic example of bureaucratic stubbornness.
Anyway, here’s a birds-eye view of the flooded Valley, taken in 2019 though looking much the same today: https://sw-ke.facebook.com/SussexAirImaging/videos/devastating-effects-of-flooding-on-cuckmere-valley-at-exceat/2532928383699262/ And to bring you up to date here are a few photos taken in the last day or so:
When the Valley floods so too do all the low lying roads and that in turn besieges our small hamlet of Westdean. Our only escape route is via what used to be, in earlier times, the road through the Downs, but now is just a track through the forest: potholed, muddy, narrow but at least not flooded. But because the track runs through the forest the leaseholders, Forest England, call a very pedantic tune: they decide when we can use it and only then are we are given a code to unlock the rusty padlocks on two dilapidated barriers. Difficult enough in daylight particularly for us old codgers with arthritis but virtually impossible after dark. Still, as it’s our only route to freedom we have to be grateful for their small mercies.
Sort of changing the subject: no luck yet in replacing poor Inky. We’ve tried five dog rescue centres so far, all according to the press chockablock with lockdown returnees but each imposing ever-stricter conditions on who can take them. Worse still, they are mysteriously able to tell whether a dog will suit their prospective owner without ever meeting them. Baffling and frustrating. It doesn’t seem to matter if it’s large corporations or small charities, they all have power in their hands…and they sure like to use it.
But to end on a less cynical note, and since everyone likes doggie photos, here’s a few of Inky in her prime:
