Irony of the day from Cumbria – people are short of water.
The problem being that there – as across the world – bridges are cheap places to route water pipes from place to place.
All of which makes sense, until you get a foot of rain in 24 hours.
Then of course, you have no bridge anymore and no water mains either. So it is that many Cumbrians tonight are hunkering down by candle light with no water listening to the rains that are still coming down.
Let’s hope they’ve plenty of their first class beer laid in. It tastes fine and you can probably bath in it too.
In town like Cockermouth another deluge today as all manner of rescue services mill about with one common problem: there is nobody to rescue. You have to question whether there might have been a bit of a overreaction.
Last night I had a kind offer to go up in a coast guard helicopter today. They were flown down all the way from the Western Isles. This morning I was told they’d flown back. That wasn’t cheap.
And in Cockermouth itself we have volunteers of all manner of rescue services and churches. This enticing little town has its fair share of churches of course.
But now they have Church of Scientology volunteers padding the streets in high vis rigout on the off chance that lost souls might still need saving from the rain or flood that some have called biblical.
I’m not sure – maybe the precipitation is getting to me too.