It's been a wild and wet Christmas here on our Welsh hillside, and boy are we glad we live on the hillside and on this side of the road at the moment.
The almost non-stop rain and storms of the last seven weeks meant that when the heavy rains of the Christmas period fell there was nowhere for them to go, the ground was already saturated and as the river swelled with each incoming tide the water levels rose dramatically.
The little dark thing you see in the center of this picture is actually the top of the gatepost, and within ten minutes of me taking this it had vanished from sight.
Our Christmas Day visitors, Mum and Graham escaped just in time on Boxing Day before the roads were completely closed, Torrents of water flowed down the hillside and across the road making it too treacherous for all but the highest of vehicles to safely cross.
Lovely Hubby went over to our neighbours to see if there was anything he could do to help, but they had already coped with moving what they could and relocating their chickens to the log shed, just as the henhouse floated off. There was nothing they could do to stop the water reaching the caravans that they have on site, they were already as high up the field as they could get them with the water lapping at the doors.
I'm loving the better zoom on my newer camera, this shot is taken from exactly the same position as the one below ....
... which shows Lovely Hubby (in the pink hat), chatting to our neighbor Steve.
But for all this water we have escaped lightly when you look at the homes and businesses that have been flooded in other parts of the country, and my thoughts go out to them.
Yesterday morning the sun shone and a light breeze was in the air, it worked wonders, and with a slightly lower tide meaning less pressure on the river the water in the fields started to gradually soak away. It will take time for things to be back to normal, but for now things are improving and once again we can see some green and the sheep are once again venturing further down the fields.
Here on the old homestead we have our fourth visitor of the festive season, my eldest son Simon, and as usual he is throwing himself lock, stock and paint brush into helping out. This time he is aiding and abetting Lovely Hubby in putting up the framework ready to hang doors for the workshop.
Work might have stopped briefly for Christmas but it's never long before we're back at it ... but this time we are all fueled by homemade soup and Quality Street :-)
A little bit of live action from Boxing Day.
Sue xx