Weird Weather

As 2012 has drawn to a close there has been a lot of discussion in the media about the extreme weather we have seen.

 

The weather in this country has always been unpredictable.  Extreme weather events are certainly not unheard of, but this year has been a year of particularly extreme rainfall - and not on just one occasion.

 

 

This is a picture of my garden after the most recent downpour, shortly before Christmas. My garden never flooded before this year - for starters we live on a hill and our soil is quite sandy and normally drains really well. But this year the ground was so saturated  and the rain so intense that it just couldn't drain away fast enough.

 

And back in the summer the downpour was even heavier, and my garden even more of a pond. Water was bubbling up in the road from drains that were unable to cope, and the river, backed up by a high tide burst its banks and flooded the town.
 

 

This is the footpath through the marshes a few days after the rain had stopped. The saddest thing to hear were the cries of the terns, their nests and chicks washed away. Although one brave man from the RSPB swam out with inflatable rafts for them and some were saved.

 

They say that extreme weather events like this will become more common as global temperatures increase. This is certainly the case in the world in which Danni, my heroine in Red Rock, lives. Britain has become a colder, wetter place.

 

I fear that the world I imagined when I was writing her story may soon become a reality for us all!