The whole world has felt very quiet and subdued today, and we are no exception.
We were driving taxis most of the night, and of course followed the whole dreadful thing as it all unfolded. We camped in that area of Paris a couple of weeks ago, just south of the Gare du Nord, walked along those very streets and past those cafes, which made the radio descriptions feel terribly real.
We listened, gripped, to the radio all evening, sitting together and holding hands and feeling terribly sad for the country where we once lived.
Of course most of our customers knew nothing about it. They were coming to the end of a night’s drinking, were oblivious to the news, and still thought it was important to argue about their taxi fare being three pounds more expensive than they thought it ought to be, which made me ruder and more impatient than I usually am. I told one man that I was making it up to defraud him and make him miserable, and to report me to the council, go on.
Everything comes into dreadful perspective when you know that people are being held hostage and executed at that very moment, in our neighbours’ capital city, and hearing the radio news of the gendarmes storming the building made us terrified and relieved and proud all at once, what extraordinarily brave men.
We got home at about half past four, to our warm, bright little house, our lives happy and our children safe, and thought how very fortunate we are. All lives have sorrows, and sometimes horrors, but ours are not today, we will make the most of the happiness on the days that we have got it.
Of course it was late when we woke up, and we had a slow and leisurely start to the day, sitting in bed and drinking coffee. Then we made sandwiches and tea, and piled logs on the smouldering fire, and went to work.
With the morning came the rain, fairly lightly at first, and then more and more heavily towards evening.
If you have been listening to the weather forecasts you will know that Cumbria, and very specifically, this bit of Cumbria, which is the south of the Lakes, was predicted to have floods today, it started off as an amber weather warning, and has progressed to a red one, which means that if you are either very stupid or very misfortunate you might be killed by the weather.
I am on the taxi rank now, with no intention of being either if I can help it, and also since this is Cumbria I have had lots of practice at wet weather and so I think I will probably be all right.
It has rained all day, and now, late at night, it is still raining. The lake is high, and the roads are dotted with what are still only big puddles, but by morning will be floods. I rolled my trousers up to my knees, and put my flip-flops and Mark’s greatcoat on to walk the dogs, it made me look as though I was auditioning for the Lord of the Rings, but I stayed dry.
It is all very exciting. The chief of Cumbria Police, a nice chap with whom I occasionally exchange emails whenever I get a bee in my bonnet, and who is always courteous and sensible in his replies, has just been on Radio Four, no less, warning people to prepare to evacuate. This means that he thinks things are going to carry on getting worse because so far although it is wet it is not at all desperate, and is not a patch on the exciting adventures of 2009, when the lake rose by nine feet and everybody’s boat toppled over and sank.
We won’t have to evacuate because our house is at the top of a hill, and I am hopeful that anybody who thinks that they might like to will decide to do it in a taxi, which would cheer my night up a bit. So far things are a bit on the quiet side, probably because everybody has looked out of the window and suddenly decided to stay at home and watch a DVD.
Can’t say I blame them.
Whilst I have been writing this some of the puddles have very definitely become floods.
And still it rains…
