By the River of Pilsdon

Shortly after posting my last blog the heavens opened and stayed open for a good twenty four hours. It was serious this time. The clouds had been practising for weeks in anticipation of a good old-fashioned Deluge and they were going to enjoy it. 

Pilsdon is situated in a wide valley known as Marshwood Vale, surrounded by hills on three sides, and nestles beneath the highest point in Dorset, Pilsdon Pen. As water has a tendency to flow downhill we found ourselves at the very epicentre of wet. Streams which had previously meandered along by the side of the lane minding their own business now became great gushing torrents that overflowed the ditches, turning the road into a fast-flowing white-water river down which moles were kayaking with joyous abandon. Possibly.

Fortunately this great new watercourse of southern England didn’t engulf us but split into two, going around Pilsdon’s land on both sides. The smaller channel flowed harmlessly down the track between us and our neighbour’s haybarn and into one of our fields. The rest of the water carried straight on down the lane, building in power as it approached the junction where ‘Bill’s Cottage’ is situated. This house is owned by Pilsdon and let out for some extra income. No one can remember who Bill was.

As the tenants of Bill’s Cottage were away and unlikely to be too pleased to find a foot of water in their kitchen, we put on our wet-gear and went out to brave the elements. Happily we had a huge amount of sand for some building work and lots of empty animal feed bags, so we made about fifteen sandbags, loaded up the 4x4 truck and drove round to the cottage. We found that the main body of water was against a wall with no doors or windows so no problem there, but a lighter tributary was coursing down the lane in front of the cottage and rising up to the front door. Plastic sheeting was put around the bottom of the door and weighed down with sandbags. We then diverted the tributary from the front of the house with a long wall of more sandbags.  Job done, as long as the waters didn’t rise above the level of our barricade.  I then waded back to Pilsdon Manor going with the current, taking care not to be knocked over and trying to avoid the steadily deepening potholes. Lumps of tarmac were being torn up by the force of it. 

The next day the floodwaters had receded leaving a very sorry-looking lane. The banks of the side-ditch had to be rebuilt. Where the side of the road had broken off, we filled it in with concrete. The council has come over and drawn nice white lines around the potholes, so that’s good too.

Our large greenhouse had been flooded by the rising water table but surprisingly the vegetables in there seem to have survived. We had come through the worst floods in living memory (at Pilsdon at least) remarkably unscathed.