Today was the day for taking Oliver back to school.
Those who are in the habit of staying up to date with current events will appreciate that this was not nearly as easy as it sounds.
We woke up to grey skies, but it was dry, and the howling winds had faded to a cool breeze, so the worst was over, and we sat in bed with coffee feeling relieved and considering the consequences. Of course there will be consequences, the last time we were flooded the whole tourist trade collapsed for months, nobody came in case they got their feet wet and in any case the lakeshore hotels were closed whilst they evicted pond life from their cellars. This may well be a problem again, the BeautifulMe Holistic Loveliness Health Spa has already called to say that their pool has been flooded, is now part of the lake, and will be out of action for at least a week except for angling.
We took the dogs out and looked at the debris, mud and branches and detritus everywhere. Some roads had not fared well at all, having collapsed under the pressure of having had to be a river bed for a few days, and huge patches of Tarmac were missing, with little streams trickling between the scattered gravel.
The police had issued further instructions about not going anywhere, but nevertheless we had got to get Oliver back to school. We contemplated following the advice, and staying where we were until tomorrow, but this hardly seemed to be in keeping with the Ibbetson spirit of Nil Giveupum, so we called Blue Star Taxis in Kendal to see what their roads were like, but they didn’t bother to answer, which answered the question very nicely. In the end we looked at the things the police were telling us not to do, and at the weather reports whilst we decided on the best course of action.
All roads out of Windermere were closed, so was the motorway junction, which was discouraging, and even more so when the police finally decided that they would open one solitary road from Windermere and then single lane access to the motorway. We thought that this sounded worse than the floods and was to be avoided at all costs.
In the end Mark went to get the camper van, because it has a very high air intake, and also because if anything happened that we couldn’t resolve we could always just camp down for a day or two and wait for the world to right itself again, and we packed up supplies for a day or two and clean clothes and the dogs, ate an enormous lunch just in case, and set off.
The wider world looked like the aftermath of the monsoon season in Bangladesh, except a lot colder. The lake was out over the road, up to the windowsills of the Lake Cruises ticket office and cafe, and the piers had vanished underwater. They evacuated Kendal last night, along with parts of Ambleside and Grasmere, and everywhere people were standing around in little groups, wearing anoraks and wellies and anxious expressions, whilst they wondered what on earth to do now.
We solved the problem of the closed roads by simply ignoring the signs and driving on them anyway, which was all right, except there were occasional abandoned cars in the middle, and patches where the water had erupted through the road surface, looking like sites of mini volcanoes. The whole experience was eerily like being in one of Oliver’s Playstation games, a bit post-apocalyptic, I kept half expecting zombies to emerge unsteadily from behind a fallen tree, but there were only sheep, which was not nearly as worrying, disgruntled and bedraggled though they looked.
We crossed over the open road between Windermere and Kendal, on our convoluted probably-passable-if-we’re-lucky route, and it was filled with cars as far as the eye could see, standing one behind the other without moving, presumably waiting whilst the ones that had made it as far as Kendal tried their luck at picking their way slowly across the remains of the bridge. We drove past them and along the country roads past Burneside and over to the foot of the Shap road, where we knew we would be all right. Once you get out on to the higher ground you are fine, the problem happens because all the water landing on the fells streams down them into the valleys, which is where all the rivers and lakes fill up and start rising inexorably and frighteningly higher.
Despite setting off just after lunch, we reached Oliver’s school fifteen minutes before the tea bell rang, and had to unpack his new trousers and borrowed red jumper as quickly as we could before hugging him a last goodbye and setting off into the dark.
We almost didn’t go home. We got up to the A66 and looked at the lorries lying blown over in the fields, and suddenly felt exhausted. We almost gave up and just stopped for the night where we were, but we have got an awful lot to do now, and so stopped for strong coffee before heading tiredly homewards.
I almost added some more flood pictures, but didn’t because we found out at school that they have been on the television news and so everybody in the world will know by now what Windermere looks like in the rain. Instead I have added another Christmas tree photograph, because it makes me happy to look at it and think that the school holidays start soon, and the children will be home, and everything will be all right again.
Soon.
.
