01 January 2014

Coming back to high water levels

"Shall we watch the eight o'clock news?" My stepmom suggested we keep ourselves informed on the world on Christmas day. One item stood out for me: wide-spread flooding in the UK. Oh dear; when I left, the river had already been quite high! They only mentioned Dorset, but why would the Dutch news be exhaustive on English flooding? So the next day I checked the river level. Dear! It had been a LOT higher than I'd ever seen it before. What would that do? But on the Yorkshire news sites no mention was made of York flooding. Apparently, nothing was amiss. And when I checked later, at the airport, levels were very modest again. But I was still curious to see for myself.

And then I went for my morning run. I didn't get very far! I could tell from trees washed up against the rail bridge, and mud on the footpath, the river had been quite energetic. And the floodplains were part flooded, and a lot of the path was under some three inches of water. And were this an off-road race I'd happily splash through, but for a morning run that goes a bit far. Good for pictures though! And if in the new year the water is still that high I'll have to run away from the river...

 The floodplain seen from the bridge. The water can be seen in the distance. These fields were the venue for the York horseraces, by the way, until flooding inspired a move to Knavesmire (not a very dryness-inspiring name itself).  
 
There is a concrete well somewhere in the plain. Something tells me the water in it is currently under pressure...
 
My running route vanishing under water
 

 It makes for nice pictures, though!

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