Tuesday 12 June 2012

Felpham: Twined With Atlantis!

Last Sunday I wandered down to the Uke Jam in Littlehampton.
I had intended riding my bicycle over but Linda insisted rain was forecast and that I should take her car.
I don't like the car, not because it's a bad car, but because a car has to be parked and the car-park is my natural enemy.
Anyway, as the uke jam ended I was glad I'd given in to Linda's cajoling because the rain had begun.

It rained and rained and rained.
Sometimes heavily, sometimes lightly, but persistent.
I put a bucket under the bit in the roof that leaks when the rain is heavy and went to bed to listen to the rain falling & falling.

It was still raining on Monday morning, but as Linda didn't have to go to work we didn't go out.

Linda tried to go to work today but returned within the hour as all the roads around us were grid-locked.
We went for a walk around the village instead:
Linda asks a nice man 'what's going on?'
The whole place seems to have been taken over by the emergency services.
A pumping operation is on-going at the Felpham Rife (local river) out-fall:
The sea gates have to be closed before high tide which means the river has to be pumped out over the sea wall to prevent the local area flooding.

We went back along the prom toward the Beach Estate where the true extent of the flooding is all to evident:


There's an unseen tragedy going on here.
I saw a woman swishing a fishing net about in the flood waters and was about to line up the camera for a shot when her neighbour enquired how she was doing.
'I've got two of them back,' she said.
Turns out that as the waters have risen, engulfing garden ponds, many ornamental carp have made a bid for freedom and are swimming through the water-logged local streets.

As Linda and I made our way home I noticed how eerily still every thing had become, like a prelude to some thing.
I decided to make sure the bucket under the leak in the roof was empty. 

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