Summer flooding happened so fast...

It's been a bit wet the last couple of days, wouldn't you know, and guess what? Lots of us have been out taking photos. Is this a particularly wet year or do I live in a very wet place? Being slightly fluvially-obsessed (never lived near a river before) I took more pictures of the Sowe. Could be the deepest yet - but difficult to say. Compare it with with my January post on the same theme.

The bit of chestnut paling is identifiable in both. A couple of days ago it was hanging a couple of metres above the water level. More photos of wet Warwickshire here. This link contains inappropriate use of apostrophes, so beware if you are sensitive to grammatical malpractice.

Global warming or what? (The near-tropical rain, not the apostrophes). Despite now having two pairs of wet trainers and two sets of wet waterproofs drying out, I'm still happy to not have a car.

Music to defrag discs to

Fopp, I think, will be my new favourite shop. Not sure yet if there is one in Cov, but spent a very happy hour or so in the branch in Bath the other day. The opportunity to listen to my booty came last night when I decided to defrag the hard disc on the old 'puter. This meant that I couldn't do any maths homework (yippee!) so I lounged about on the sofa listening to 'Chavez Ravine' - Ry Cooder, 'Before the Flood' - Bob Dylan/The Band, and 'The Man in Black' - Johnny Cash. Wonderful! I think I may have to wait to listen to 'PUNK F**k Art Let's Danse' (various artists) till I am sure that my neighbours are out...

The defrag took nearly 12 hours and has resulted in some improvement to computer speed - I'm sure you are all interested to know... By the way, does anyone know any tips on unit conversions?

Weekend Bath

Spent a jolly weekend visiting Tabflower and Hubby and Bean. A city with hills and views is rather a novelty to me at the moment, even more so a kitchen with a view of hills - so I gladly volunteered to do the washing-up!

Off down the Kennet and Avon canal on a borrowed bike (made me realise that my brakes are not exactly state of the art...) to dodge all the other Sunday cyclists, strollers, joggers, etc. It's rather different from the canal towpaths which I normally frequent.

This surreal sculpture may be connected with the nearby narrow-boat - a narrow-boat you can imagine Tolkien describing (if you can imagine Tolkien imagining narrowboats) - with round windows, doors, and a roof made of coppice poles. Just one of many lovingly-adapted boats, stretching along much of the ten miles to Bradford-on-Avon. Lots of arty recycled windows, gardens in containers on roofs, even a 'green' roofed boat. I liked the slogan in one window: "We're all here 'cos we're not all here". I wonder if this is where some of the people who were called New Age Travellers by the media 15-odd years ago have ended up. It seems an idyllic lifestyle, living on a narrowboat, but it could just as easily be pretty tough. It was obvious that some boat dwellers were not able to spend much money on upkeep. I didn't take any photos, as I feel it is rather cheeky.