In Spate!

It rained, real rain today. We waited till after lunch in the hope that it would clear, but there was no avoiding a trip to the tip with the hedge trimmings, the car was full of them. It smelled wonderful. 

The Recycling Facility, as we should call it, is in Hawick - a town prone to flooding. This is the Slitrig Water, normally not much more than a fast flowing stream, as it thundered down towards its confluence with the Teviot. 

The Teviot was very full, and both were the colour of cocoa. TM, the hydrologist, gave me a full explanation of why there is so much colour - it's down to the warm dry weather of recent months and some kind of bacterial activity which this promotes in the soil. At least, I think that's what he said. 

Hawick has been dug up for years as a new flood defence scheme is installed. It's nowhere near finished, I hope it has coped today.

We did the supermarket shopping, Aldi for TM, Sainsbury's for me. That should keep us going for a month at least.