c) 10 august

It has been raining non stop for days, feels like we are trapped in
a grey net curtain. Poor B, being a collie cross so very woolly, hasn't
been properly dry for days. Our clothes are taking ages to dry too, the
air is so damp, and if you put the radiators on it becomes humid as a
rainforest with dripping laundry leaves
Out walking, the
slurpy trickle from the drainpipe into the 6 inches of scummy water
over sludgey mud that was supposed to be our lawn (MUST get a water
butt) is replaced by the busy rushing in ditches that have suddenly
discovered their purpose in life.
After supper, R, the
gentleman, when we've waited in vain half an hour for an extra
torrential bit to ease, offers to take B for his night walk without me.
Feeling guilty, I accept, give him a hug by the open front door. B
takes the opportunity to sidle back in. R goes out, calls him, but
before the door closes B has dashed in again to hide behind me. At last
R gets them both to the porch and quickly shuts the door, and I go back
to the kitchen to listen to the now excited drainpipe : like a foreign
tongue speaking quickly you think you could understand if you just
studied it long enough
R soon comes back bubbling as the
water, B dashing into the kitchen. I put on my wellies, go with R
outside. The rain has stopped! There is a pang in the air, which hangs
thick, warm and soft as a hen's breast. Houses on the hill across the
bay twinkle through clay green space like a half excavated
mosaic.
Explorers emerging in wonder from a spaceship to a new
world, where towering metal stemmed flowers shed orange light instead
of scent, we leap the metre wide gleam skimming down the hill and go
up. It's as if a dragon were roaring beneath our feet, getting louder
as we approach the first drain cover. I imagine it tunneling under the
town, spray wings tight against thrusting shoulders, seeking a weak
place to burst free. The ground is trembling. The roadside gutter has
become a mouth with a tongue of water licking, lunging out through its
metal teeth. A rain viper writhes hissing down the concrete steps
beside the school. As we go on up the hill another underground dragon
is drowned out by the stream in the little park. I go to look. It is
vicious with power, shoving, furious, swollen to a steely, froth veined
pulse of speed.
R is calling me to see the Pavillion road. I
follow. The wide gentle slope is sheened all over with flood. It
thrills half way up my wellies, urging me to join the flow, but we
splash on against its pushing to the sound of a new torrent. All the
rain fall from the hill above seems to have centred on this drain. It
has been wrenched open. Water like muscles in the flayed corpse of a
Leonardo drawing come to life twists and clenches glittering in the
dark, at any minute will empower the tarmac bones beneath, rise up, a
grey giant, and all the houses will fall like links in a broken chain



Back in the flat, neither of us can
sleep
The rain starts again