Monday 23rd December - Tuesday 24th December - What a night!

Last night the Upstairs Cat spent the whole evening peering out through the cat flap in the kitchen. There was nothing to see, just an impenetrable blackness and the sound of rain thundering against the door. I opened the door a crack for her to have a proper look-see, (she likes to check things out before venturing into the jungle). She rushed round, and halted in shock. There was a terrible deep roaring coming from the wind through the large oaks at the bottom of the garden, as though the black jungle was full of hungry wild beasts.

"Where the Wild Things Are" by Maurice Sendak

Upstairs Cat hunkered down and slunk away into her bed.

During the night we were kept awake by the howling wind and thrashing rain. We'd just gone back to sleep when there was a power cut, causing my oxygen machine to make frantic beeping alarms. The power came back after a couple of minutes, and this time we managed to sleep for at least another hour. Bleah.

This morning, we woke to a wet world. The little trickling brook that slowly oozes along a deep gully beyond the bottom of the garden is now a couple of hundred yards across, hurtling towards the River Arun at the rate of 6 miles per hour. I took some pictures from the upstairs window - it is not called the "Red River" for nothing.

 

Don't panic - it has to flood considerably more before we are in any danger; the level of the water is about 4 feet below the level of our "lawn". As I was taking photographs, there was this distant, desperate mewling. For a few moments I thought that maybe there was a cat stranded in one of the trees, surrounded by water, and was beginning to formulate rescue plans. I opened the window, and could see the Downstairs Cat wandering around by the back door, announcing to the world the terrible, terrible, End-of-days apocalypse that has come to pass.

It has started to rain again.