Gus is shepherding Rowan back to us as we finished our eventful walk round the bend in the Kent.  Rowan never contents himself with a small stick, he prefers carrying logs - if Sue had a woodburning stove, he would keep her well supplied.

The Kent was running dangerously high today, and Rowan slipped the leash, jumped a fence and went into the water in pursuit of a football.  Fortunately he doesn't like getting out of his depth, and he nosed it out into the fast flowing channel and didn't follow it - which surely would have been fatal.  Gus is no water dog, he was keeping well clear.

More rain on already saturated catchments led to yet more floods in Cumbria today.  Glenridding was flooded for the third time in three weeks.  It's desperate.  Yesterday, I walked into Kendal along the riverside, and saw first hand many of the houses and businesses that were flooded three weeks ago.  Almost every house close to the river has a skip full of sodden furniture, carpets and appliances outside, with contractors' vans everywhere as the houses are being dried out and stripped of plaster.  Kendal has suffered more flooded properties than Carlisle, though it has had less coverage in the news.

Tomorrow, we escape south, hopefully to drier conditions, as we go down to keep the Old Flyer company over Christmas.  Hopefully, I shall have more time there to catch up with comments.  Please don't comment on this, I am so behind, and I feel so guilty that I have been so silent, when others have been so kind.