Saturday 8th February

And at the moment we are on bottled water.  The boiler broke last night and was leaking badly, so while we wait for our British Gas engineer to turn up we are waterless in Gaza.  Which is ironic as it is pissing down outside and, as you must all be aware, has been for at least a month.  And there is nothing quite as depressing as constant rain.  There has hardly been a clear day in the whole of January and now February is looking just as bad.  It isn’t even that cold either, though when the wind gets up, which is every other day, it feels quite bitter.  And the ground is so sodden, on the drive to Walton we pass flooded river after flooded river, and this is Essex – not Somerset or Cornwall.  Whole low-lying corners of fields have become lakes.  And the farmers are already complaining that the crops will be ruined or severely compromised.   The Government has miraculously produce 130 million pounds for flood defences when they have already cut the Environment Agency budget by more than that.  Of course there is no provable correlation and the floods could well have been as bad without the cuts, who knows, but it is indicative that the cuts, rather than simply reduce waste are actually doing damage as well.

And now of course people are beginning to say that the bad weather is a possible result of Global Warming.  The weather is actually a lot milder than normal winters, this does not bring tropical sunshine at all, but lots and lots of weather system driving in from the Atlantic.  The longer term consequences will be on house prices and insurance cover.  We live, unfortunately in a market economy, and those poor people who have been flooded may well find that next year their properties are uninsurable and virtually unsaleable too.

When will the wet weather end?  Not for a while I fear.