Well...

...yesterday was fun!

After the snow comes the rain...and floods. Well not floods exactly, but very large puddles...the type that go across the road and if you drive too fast at...you stop! I've lived here too long to do something daft like that, but plenty did. After several years you get to know the dips in the road, and where that lying water will be. The stream across my garden was high, but not near flooding, so I left that to its own devices and went out. There was the usual large puddle down the road, but you could get through that, and the water running off the fields were a torrent, with the melting snow and the following rain, the ground was just too sodden...the next village though was a different story and the centre was flooded, as usual. The ditches that run into "my" stream, which is really the river Stort, just can't cope and always flood when there's excessive water...I don't know if anyone got caught this year. I'm guessing so... Travelling around you could see the fields looking like lakes early on, but by evening most of the local ones were more like fields again, though my husbands train was delayed with flooding causing the signals to fail at Roydon, near Harlow...but that is a known water meadow...and luckily not built on yet!

A lot of areas were a lot worse off than here...I hope they're all safe now.

My journey yesterday? To Elveden Estate with my daughter in law, she'd never been and had a day off work. We wondered if we'd get caught by the rain, but it was a beautifully sunny day...anyway, if you live close and have never been, do go. It is a nice calming place, with a good restaurant, nice and pretty shops around a courtyard...and friendly staff. I came away with some toffee cookies for my husband and a handmade chocolate bar for my daughter in law, as she'd bought things for her two boys and my son, but left herself out. We had a fun day...

Now today I must make some beads...and maybe get some decorating done.