When morning came I was stiff, cold, and terrified, as the river had now came up to about forty meters from our houses, swallowing up everything in it's way, even the apple trees that grew quite high up on the other side. Looking across at Gary's apple orchards, all I could see was a mass of water, the river also having swallowed his comlplete orchard!
The river was awesome, flowing quite slowly, but carrying away huge trees that had been uprooted, but what really scared me was the noise that came from the brown water, a kind of ominous shhhh,shhhh! I stood there, alone, scared, and utterly devastated, as I had nowhere to run if the river came up higher, as the roads running down was completely washed away, with water storming at amazing speed down to the river!
At about eleven that morning I thought that the solid grey sky had become a teeny bit lighter, but the rain still pelted down, me now only able to get out at my back door to let Hendrix out. Luckily the fall down to the anexe was about three quarters of a meter, so the water ran down too fast to really seep under the sitting room's door too much, but I got palpitations just thinking of what the bottom room looked like, as the water was again dammed up there, with me unable to get out and clear the rubbish away again.
By three I thought that the rain had become lighter, and sure enough, the miracle that I thought would never happen, did happen, and by night time, it was only raining a little!
The water from the mountain ran away quite fast after the rain stopped, so I managed to clear the rubbish away from where it was now tightly compacted at the fence, blocking the water from running away. I then braced myself to look over the stable door of the bottom room to see what it looked like, and I must say, I think my heart really dropped down to my shoes! It resembled a swimming pool, and it was about half a meter deep, and I just cried, and cried!
I couldn't open the door, as it opened to the inside, so I went back to the main house to sit and feel sorry for myself, as it was now becoming dark, so any clearing up had to wait till morning.
I had the forethought to check my electricity box, and saw that it had tripped, a small leak having sprung just above it, So I dried it, and to my delight my lights came back on!
The next morning broke clear and warm, and it was only now that the devastation the water had left behind could be seen! There was no road, as most of the soil had been carried away to the river, and the water was still running down, but quite gently now.
I started clearing up in the house, the boulders that had fallen from the chimney almost breaking my back, as they were big and heavy. It wasn't too bad, as I just had to dry up the floors, and hang out everything that was soaked! The mattress I put on the grass on a piece of black builders plastic, and almost killed Hendrix, who must have thought it was put there specially for him to warm himself after the hardship he went through, and on coming back from his morning visits, spread his muddy body comfortably out in the sun, on my new mattress! He was very upset at my screaming at him, and his amber eyes looked at me in surprise, I suppose wondering what was going on with the old soal now!
Then I took stock of the bottom room, something I had tried not to think about, but knew I had to do.