Things didn’t exactly run smoothly this morning.

I had an early start. A friend, whose car, like tens or hundreds of thousands of others, is parked on high ground to avoid the flooding, asked for a lift to the nearest bus stop. I agreed, and bleary eyed picked him up and took him the kilometre or so to the main road.

I knew then that I couldn’t turn left to get back home because the road is flooded. I needed to do a U-turn, then turn north onto the ring road. However, habit kicked in (since my brain was not yet fully functional), and after the U-turn I turned south as if to go shopping. Realising the error of my (high)ways I got off at the next junction, intending to do a U-turn under the main road. The underpass was flooded and impassable. I drove on for miles passed flooded U-turn after flooded U-turn. Eventually there was a U-turn which was only flooded to 20 cm, or so the sign said. Cars were passing through in both directions, so it seemed (and was) safe.

The road ended in a T-junction. Left or right? I vaguely recalled the layout of the junction, and plumped for right, thinking that I could do a U-turn in the middle of the road if I’d got it wrong. Inevitably I had got it wrong, and furthermore couldn’t get into the U-turn lane. I was forced to turn right … which put me back on the road with all the flooded U-turns. Many miles later, dodging wandering cows and dogs, I eventually made it home; a 15 minutes trip had taken well over an hour. Not that I had been particularly looking forward to getting home. Just as I was leaving I noticed that Whisky’s coat was heavily matted with merde (or coated in caca if you prefer) – pardon my French. He must have been rolling on his back in the garden. And I’d only bathed him a couple of days before!

Morning was well and truly broken.

[576]