Rain Drenched Day

Woke to a solid wall of rain this morning, which continued, and continued. I decided to drive to the hairdresser in Loughborough as a result and not take the bus. I couldn't anticipate what holdups there might be.

There had been rain in Loughborough, but not the continuous drenching rain that we had in Shepshed. In fact, it was dry most of the time, if cloudy.

Someone had posted a note on the Facebook wall for Shepshed showing the latest stream gauge reading for the Blackbrook, which skirts our town. It was way over the top.

So in the afternoon, I took Basil to Oakley Road playing fields for a field investigation. The photograph shows the extension of Oakley Road with a family in wellies returning along it. They hadn't long gone down there but had had to return. First of all, the smallest girl had had to be hoisted on to her Dad's shoulders because the water had come to the top of her wellies. A few yards further, the water had come over the top of the older girl's wellies and was getting deeper. This would be at the point where the Grace Dieu Brook joins the Blackbrook and backs up over the fields.

The Blackbrook was roaring despite the rain having tailed off in the morning. Water was running off the fields. Another thunderstorm lay on the horizon over Piper Woods. Neither the Dad nor I had seen the Blackbrook so overflowing as it was today.

The meadow growth is lush, so it can be hard to see where the water is lying on the surface. For that, you need an aerial shot. In the wheat fields across the road, the water lay in trenches like silver ribbons. The field by the entrance to the recycling centre is totally under water.

I took a series of photos to make an illustrative panorama of the flood.

Choir tonight in Leicester. The ladies are rehearsing the choral part for Neptune from Holst's Planet Suite to be performed with the Charnwood Orchestra at the end of the month.