It's raining, it's pouring, the sighthounds are snoring

[bunn]

This morning, with some difficulty, we pried the dogs out of the house and walked them in the pouring rain.  They were not well pleased, despite their waterproof coats.   The roads are gushing.  Particularly the road past the pub, where a drain has completely given up and has spat out great gobs of tarmac before turning into a large decorative water-feature, creating a stream that charges past a line of sandbags, and is threatening to climb out of the gutter into the pub itself.   The paths are gushing too.  Even right up on top of the hill where you wouldn't think there was room for much water to build up, amazing amounts of water is sweeping the mud from the paths  into great swamps and pools behind every hedge and bush.

A man I came across in a cafe today told me solemnly that in the USA and Australia, all new houses are built on stilts so that they cannot be flooded.  I feel this information may not be 100% accurate.  None the less I nodded, said 'Really?' and agreed that We Should Be Doing That.  I quite like the idea of Houses on Stilts. 

Now I probably need to pry my dogs out of the house again.  I feel a very short damp walk coming on.

Comments

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I have just returned from a fruitless trip to B&Q, and can confirm that it is Very Wet Indeed out there.

When I was young, we sometimes went to see The House on Stilts at ?Woodwalton Fen.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

We took the dogs down to Fairlop Plain, where we can walk round the lake on a paved path that is only occasionally flooded. However, we met an acquaintance with her big Ridgeback, who informed us cheerfully that Archie, said Ridgeback, had been cantering across the golf course, splashed into a pool and vanished from sight, only have his head reappear as he swam to relatively shallow places. I presume he went into a sand trap...

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Brythen did that a couple of months ago, gallumphing about in an area riddled with dips and hollows. He went in deep enough that he had to swim, which was most upsetting for a dog that normally tries to avoid even getting his feet wet.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Oh, and in Queensland, houses have been built on stilts for over a hundred years. We saw them while we were there back in about 1995...

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

I don't blame them, it's utterly foul here too, I haven't been through the door since I got back from the States on Thursday morning!

[ozisim.livejournal.com]

umm... the severe flooding in 2010 was made a lot worse by the fact that new developments were NOT built using Queenslander Houses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queenslander_%28architecture%29)!

[ozisim.livejournal.com]

... my Dad's house:

No stilts!

[bunn.livejournal.com]

It's an excellent house, and I am particularly taken by the blue skies above it, but I feel it would sadly disappoint Cafe Man in the stilts department :-D

[ozisim.livejournal.com]

Yes!
That's the colour that the sky is supposed to be!
I didn't realise how broken the sky was here until I went to Egypt and it was the right colour again!

[puddleshark.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've ever seen the water levels so high around here - even on the supposedly dry sandy soil of the heath the paths are underwater. But unlike Az & Brythen, Pip is actually quite pleased about this.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

It has been higher here in the past - at the moment the Tamar is still just about inside her banks. But you can see she's quite cross about it and thinking about busting out of them.

I wish Brythen liked water! He hates going out in the rain, but he gets awfully bored in the house, what with his 5-second attention span...

[huinare.livejournal.com]

Stilts? That's a new one.

Er, I mean, yes, over here we call them Yankee Doodle Stilties, and all new houses are built on them because our government totally takes global warming seriously, and they look rather like great ungainly beasts. *sage nod*

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Yankee Doodle Stilties *Splorfl*

Stilts

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Now I'm imagining whole countries full of Baba Yaga houses. Not only would they stand clear of the flood water, they could all go scurrying away to drier climes whenever it all gets a bit too wet.

Re: Stilts

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Cafe Man would approve of this vision. I can only repeat my answer to him *nods* 'We should probably be doing that'...

[thecatsamuel.livejournal.com]

Yuk. One of our (two) access roads has flooded and the other is only passable with care, so we may be Cut Off For Christmas. It is currently NOT raining here but the clouds are very grey and dark. Perhaps we all need stilts. Or an ark...

[inzilbeth-liz.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking of you. It's bad enough up here but I'm guessing it's worse where you are. My dogs love the water but keeping the outside stock safe from flood water is becoming a bit of a nightmare.