Last night was eventful!
We had an enormous amount of rain that fell on us. It probably began around 23:30 with incredible displays of electricity in the sky, the rumblings of thunder soon came and there were a couple of real crackers, which set the dogs off around the countryside. I couldn't drop off to sleep as I was wondering what we were in for as the wind got stronger, because I hadn't seen the forecast for the night and I hadn't realised that we were in for a big'n.
The rain began lightly and at this point I thought it best to go out and close the shutters, the wind was getting up and it was coming from the north, so this blew straight into our bedroom and the living room. I popped out of the back door so not to disturb J or C, and was promptly followed by 3 cats and two kittens who thought I was bringing them food - oh no, not at that time of night.
Shutters on that side of the house closed I went back inside and tried to settle down for the night. I couldn't. The rain began in earnest and so I had to close the windows as well because the wind blew the rain under the exterior shutters (persianas). I popped over to the other side of the house to make sure the rain wasn't coming in there either, but that seemed fine...for a moment.....then I heard it.
It came down incredibly hard, it was like a tropical storm, I whipped round the house closing all the windows I could and although the weather came from the north the wind was all over the place and was blowing it in all directions.
The roof in the living room began to leak! so I grabbed bowls and towels (to stop the drip, drip noise), then I heard a LOT of water outside the front of the house and the dogs barking periodically. I decided to check.
Peering around the front door I saw a bucket float past! and Rex barked at it as if it was an intruder. I grabbed my waterproofs and wellies, desperately trying to pull a pair of socks on - I hate wellington boots with no socks!! You never know if there are spiders hiding in the toe end!! I grabbed a torch and went outside. Meanwhile...C was sound asleep and I couldn't wake him to help me out & J was sparko.
The flooding came up to my shins! great. I knew it was the drains covered in leaves, so for 20 mins I set about clearing them - it took a while but finally the water subsided and drained away. Then I thought ' oh heck the turkeys!'. Their pen is situated at the bottom of a small orange grove and when it rains it gets very, very muddy!!
On my way down the grove past the trees - which were all completely waterlogged - there was a huge puddle by the turkeys gate. I managed to untie the sodden rope and went into the pen, shining the torch to see if they were ok. I couldn't find them. You would think that they would have been snuggled up in their little house - but NO! they were in the corner under a tree, huddled up and as close to the back wall as possible. They looked completely bedraggled and their feathers were all wet, they were not happy boys. Half the pen was underwater, so I carefully picked up Spock and put him under cover and then Humphrey. Their food was mush, so I tipped it out and ran back to the store cupboard to get them some dry mash, ready for the morning. I then had to run back to the garage to grab some dry straw which they then snuggled into quite happily for the rest of the night.
On waking up this morning and looking outside, there was no trace of any flooding at all! The land has been so dry this summer that it just soaked it up as soon as possible.
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