I had to climb over the stable door of my bottom room, and for a woman not in the first blush of youth, it was not so easy, and just a wee bit on the rediculous side. The water was almost up to my knees, and the sight of my new curtains and bedfrill that was all muddy, and the kist and chest of drawers that was halfway covered in brown muddy water brought on a bit of hysteria, as the task of clearing up just looked to me impossible. But after a cuppa to calm the nerves, and a very hearty cry, I went to see if Christalina did not know of somebody to come and help me, her working full time for Sheila now. But as usual in Haarlem, nobody was available, so weaponed with a pail I commenced operation dewatering.
It was late afternoon when at last I had all the water out, but found that there was a thick deposit of densely packed mud covering both the bedroom and the bathroom, and if I could have gotten out of this place at that stage, I would have abandoned ship! But the roads were washed away, the bridges on both sides of the village of course still under meters of water, and there was just no escape.
I watched the news the previous night, and the small pass through the mountains to Uniondale was completely washed away, and as Haarlem was situated between the mountains and the river, nobody could get out until the river had subsided! I was okay, as I had bought groceries when in George, but there was a few small grocery shops scattered over Haarlem, and as long as their stock lasted, everyone should be okay until the water had gone down enough to see what the bridges were like.
The clay like mud covering the floor was packed so densely that the spade I tried to use did not even make an impact, so I got the pick, and with that I slowly started to make an impression, but it was backbreaking work, and took me almost three days before I had cleared away all the mud that was about a foot deep! My beautiful painted floor was ruined!
In the meantime one of the roads leading down from the mountain that was not too badly damaged had been filled in, and as the roads running  horisontally was only damaged where the water ran over them, that was also filled in, and we could at least get to the little shops if we needed something.
Danny's kids had a jolly time, as the dam that Hendrix used for his morning swims had broken, and hundreds of beautiful little fish with bright red gills were swimming around in the deep dongas that were once the road in front of my house. To the kids it was great sports trying to catch this fish. The water was still running down, but not too bad, and I tried to rescue the fish that got stuck on the way, and had a huge fight with Hendrix!
Being a Labrador, he of course just wanted to rescue everything from the water, and he made me want to bally whip him, as every fish that I threw in the river, that had subsided quite a bit now, Hendrix would joyfully sacrifice his life for by diving in to rescue the poor fish, and deposit them at my feet, very happy with his heroic deed, smiling broadly, and nudging the fish to life. As most of his rescuees were quite dead by this time, his jaws just a bitty to strong for the tiny things, I went on like a crazy old thing, and he would just sat there, looking at me with his sad amber eyes, not understanding why he wasn't praised for his heroism!
There were also lots of crabs scuttling around, so I gathered them and put them close to the river, scared that they would just be washed away and drown if I threw them in the still raging waters.
My chest of drawers I had to leave to dry out first, as the wood had swolen and could not open. I knew that all my clothes in there were ruined, and also the clothes in my kist. I still had to get a wardrobe, and luckily for me I had made a plan to hang my clothes by screwing two big hooks into the rafters, then hung two pieces of chain on that, with a pole through the chain, and voila, hanging space! So at least my clothes on there had kept reasonably dry, as I had covered it also with plastic bags.
My curtains and bedfrill was of course ruined, the mudstains refusing to lift, but I hung the curtains back until such time as I could get another pair.
My beautiful painted floor was looking terrible, as all the paint had lifted, and my heart sank at the thought of taking off and repainting it. It was sad, as I took so much trouble in trying to immitate real clay tiles!