Rain, Rain, Go Away! Once Again It's Vettel's Day!

It's England. It's raining. Should we be surprised? Actually, yes we should but not the fact that it's raining, rather the sheer volume of water falling from the sky. The ground is saturated and every shower brings the chance of flooding ever closer. It's funny how the phrase "Global Warming" has been altered to "Climate Change" because any theory that we may actually get "warmer" weather on a regular basis in the British Isles has been blown out of the water. No pun intended. When I was young it always used to be that we had hot sunny days in summer, ice and snow in winter. These days we seem to get year-round rain with occasional short spells of sunshine. Every few months there seems to be somewhere else with flood damage.

Mill On The Exe, Exeter with
Press and TV coverage

As someone who predominantly plays summer sports I was excited by the prospect of England being a hot country! For the last 5 years our summers have been wet and miserable, not conducive to cricket in any way. Really it's no wonder so many of us go over to Australia in search of better weather and therefore more cricket, however to say it doesn't rain over there either wouldn't be accurate. It does, and a lot of the time heavier and more dramatic than the current deluge the South West of England finds itself under. Nevertheless, the resulting floods that have struck the Westcountry after this rain are still terrible, especially around the River Exe in Exeter. Cowley Bridge looked awful from the aerial shots, even the railway was under water. Today I went to look for myself and thankfully the water has receded for now.

Sky News featured a short video from Bovey Tracey, my hometown. I had to drive through it and I also took a video although I didn't think to send it to a news agency. I have only ever once known the water get that high in Bovey, I remember going on my paper round as a 13 year old and almost getting my pushbike stuck in the "puddle" opposite Station Road car park which was up to the handlebars. Now I'm old enough to drive, going through it this time left me considerably drier but the difference this time is that it continued raining and getting higher as the evening wore on! I haven't seen that amount of water in Bovey, ever. It literally made every road into a river, and it got to the stage where I had to say "no more deliveries" while working at Pizza Box on Saturday night. It took a little over an hour for the water on Station Road to go from a bit of a puddle to a full-blown flood.

Vettel winning in Melbourne 2011

Thank you and goodbye,
Michael Schumacher

Rain isn't exclusive to England, of course. Yesterday in Sao Paulo, Brazil the Formula 1 World Championship decider was settled in favour of that man again, Sebastian Vettel. Rain played it's part and allowed Vettel to recover after a first lap spin and to be fair to him, he scored more points over the season and therefore deserves to be the youngest Triple World Champion in F1 history. Red Bull have done a fantastic job and I only wish now that Adrian Newey would move on to a different mid-field team and take them to the top the way he has done before with Red Bull, McLaren and Williams. It won't happen anytime soon though. Also we have seen the last of Michael Schumacher in a Formula 1 car and I find that pretty sad. I was a massive Schumacher fan in his Ferrari years but the comeback with Mercedes hasn't gone to plan for him, and I am just glad I was able to see the great man race in Melbourne 2011, even if it didn't last long and wasn't at the front. Love him or hate him, he is a 7 times World Champion and a true legend of the sport. He statistically is the greatest ever, however I'm not the only one to feel that Ayrton Senna is the only one who can be considered the greatest of all time, something that Schumacher himself says.

A rainbow in Bovey, but don't
expect a pot of gold(!)

Back to the weather, this last week has been atrocious. Of course that has a bearing on my mood and I'm fast coming close to having a Sense Of Humour Failure after the week that was. In recent years I've actually been fairly lacklustre about keeping time, and usually turn up on time or a minute or two late. I never used to do that, I always used to be the one there on time or extra early. I've made a conscious effort since getting home from Australia last month to be early for most things I do, and when I make an extra effort to be early for things there is nothing more frustrating than something or someone making me late. I have my reasons for going to places early, because I know that if I don't I will end up cutting it fine to get to my other responsibilities and if I'm late to that, other people are affected and suddenly it's me that's forcing something or someone to be late. Obviously weather related delays can't be helped. I can't do anything about the road accidents causing delays, but when other people make me late it's infuriating because I know that'll I'll be causing other people to be infuriated by MY lateness.

The rain is falling once again and I wouldn't be surprised if the water rises in Bovey again and reaches similar levels, although as time passes thankfully that seems less and less likely. Yesterday morning I took a walk down to the scene to try and get some photographs in daylight but the water had gone and there was nothing to take a photo of. Perhaps I should be thankful I'm not working in it today. If the forecasts are to be believed then after the rain disappears there will be ice, snow and general freezing temperatures around. Just what is required, freezing temperatures and wet ground(!) Mind you, the Met Office also told us to expect a hot summer. How did that turn out? At the moment it's very much a case of wait and see, whatever it may be. With the visa application, seeing Jess, and other delays at the moment, it seems that all I ever do is wait. Just quietly, I'm tired of waiting and growing ever more impatient for the next 137 days to pass.