Posts that Didn't Happen: February 2026

Well - that didn't last long - although in my defence February was pretty much a month where not much happened either - except for rain, rain and more rain!

At least the pigeons seemed to enjoy it . . .

Mostly pottered our time away wandering round town, dodging in and out of charity shops to avoid said rain, and buying things which we may (or may not) keep (been selling a few unwanted bits and pieces online).

Had a cold, then a very dodgy stomach for a couple of weeks after deciding to see if Kefir would improve my 'gut health'.  Too much, too soon maybe, as instead I completely lost all appetite, and managed to lose nearly half a stone in weight!

Indulged in some more Lego along the way, and some jigsaws - and ended the month with a 'happy' family event - celebrating the announcement of a Great-Nephew due to arrive in the summer. 🎉

Sunshine after the Storm

The latest storm of the season - Storm Christophe - landed this week, and while it wasn't that stormy in some ways, it did rain, a lot!

The paddling pool at the top of the garden was soon a rather large 'lake', which while it was draining off into the field next to us, couldn't quite keep pace with the amount of water still coming down and finding its way in from the top field.

Meanwhile on the other side of the crossroads the road had flooded again, although not as badly as in 2018.  Even so it was rather surprising to see someone riding their bike through the floodwaters!

 

By today the water was subsiding rapidly, and it had (mostly) stopped raining.  

The sun even came out for a little while - illuminating the first daffodil of the year.  Hopefully that means Spring is on its way!

Paddling Pool?

With all the wet weather we've been having recently, the top of the garden has once again developed 'pond' tendencies, and the bonfire pit has filled with water.

It's a bit like having a paddling pool at the top of the garden - wouldn't mind so much if we had a swimming pool (miss my swimming - our leisure centre is still designated as a field hospital and the pool is closed).

Anyway, various drainage schemes are under consideration, but for now this will have to do . . .

Waterlogged Wales

Well our bit of it anyway. 

Rain, rain and more rain, and the fields below our house are developing streams . . .

. . . with actual flooding in the village and over the cross-roads.

Hopefully it stops raining before we float away!

A Pond Too Far . . .

After a mix of damp days and heavy downpours, got up on Saturday to find we'd got another pond at the bottom of the garden - and by dinnertime (after more rain) it was a positive lake, which had flooded back into the fruit cage.





Fortunately the rain stopped in the afternoon, and we were able to get the drain rods out in (what turned out to be) a vain attempt to clear the drainage pipe into the field next door.


In the end we had to resort to running hose pipes from the 'lake' down to the bottom of the drive, to siphon the water off into the roadside drains, and to clear enough water to hopefully find the drainage pipe.

The hosepipes did sterling work and by Sunday morning, the lake was back to pond, and the fruit cage was clear of water.

We even got a small pipe draining through the hedge into the field, but weren't able to clear the main drainage pipe, which we thought had probably collapsed.


Overnight it rained heavily again, but the hosepipes etc. kept draining and at least  on Monday morning the pond if it wasn't any smaller, wasn't at least that much bigger.

Finally, today, it stopped raining - the 'pond', now little more than a muddy puddle, finally allowed access to the old drainage pipe, which had indeed collapsed.  Luckily we had an old scaffolding pipe lying around the place, and Martin was able (with some brute force, and getting rather muddy in the process) to hammer through a new drainage channel.

We'll have to do some more work at some point to establish a clear path through to the pipe - but that can wait for another day, and some better weather!

The Great Flood

Well, it's been an interesting weekend.  Friday was wet - but not unusually so (at least in Aberystwyth) - yet this was the scene looking down on the town on Saturday morning.

According to the Met Office Trawsgoed (nearby) recorded rainfall of  "102.0 mm from 10am on Thursday to 10am on Saturday. This is well over its usual entire monthly average for June of 78.5mm."


All of which perhaps goes some way towards explaining the events of Saturday (in combination with high tides that prevented dispersal of the excess water) - and the unexpected (if not entirely unforeseen) flooding of the Aberystwyth retail parks and their environs.

Blaendolau fields of course have been known to flood on a fairly regular basis - but nothing quite like this:

The flooding of Morrisons, the roundabout, and the retail park (with its newly opened B&Q store) was a little more unexpected . . .




There have always been mutterings about 'building on the flood plain', and while the new housing estates largely escaped, the nearby doctor's surgery didn't fare quite so well.

The flooding wasn't limited to Aberystywth either, the evacuation of various caravan holiday parks hit the headlines, and the villages of Capel Bangor and Tal-y-bont were also badly hit in places (click on the links for more dramatic pictures!).

Doubtless normality will return in due course.  We survived intact up our hill, without even a pond to our name.

Update - Saturday 16th: The waters soon receded, although the rivers are still quite swollen - the clearing up could take some while mind you - the shops on the retail park are all still shut a week later (all except for Morrisons, which more or less escaped and was open again the next day) - just hoping today's heavy rain wasn't enough to trigger a repeat performance . . .

All pictures in this post (except the first) © Mike Hirst - thanks Mike!

Water, Water, Everywhere . . . #2

In contrast to the last post with this title, this was an entirely man made occurrence. It all started when Martin went to fix the outside tap that was the subject of our last 'flood' post.

All went well up to the point where he went to switch the water back on at the stopcock, and couldn't. Much angst followed, and when eventually the stopcock budged, it budged in its entirety and came off!

This left us with no water in the house, but far too much outside, as water welled up from the broken stopcock, and streamed across to the nearest drain. We were straight on the phone to Welsh Water, who said they'd send a man round as soon as possible. In the meantime we tried to 'harvest' as much of the water as we could - scooping it out with an old squash bottle, and filling watering cans and water butts, and watering everything in the garden along the way.

The 'man' duly arrived - and said he'd need to call in a 'gang' - which contrary to what you might expect turned out to be a gang of one!

To give the 'gang' his due, he'd soon created a good sized hole, and with the mains water switched off, fitted us a brand new stopcock (which has obviously gone through a major redesign since our last one was fitted 30+ years ago!).

From this:to this:

We now have water inside, and no water outside, which is as it should be - the hole outside is partially filled in, but as with these things, not everything that came out will go back in! Another 'gang' (which might be 2 men this time!) are due tomorrow to 'make good'.


It made for an interesting day anyway, and one we'll remember for things other than England losing to Germany 4-1 in the World Cup.

Could have been Worse!

Well November's weather (see below) was what might be conservatively referred to as 'wet and windy'. Thus far the effects haven't been quite as bad as the end of October last year, although the garden was approaching saturation point by the end of last week.

Compared with my former stomping ground in the Lake District we appear to have got off very lightly though. The effect on the towns and villages of the North Lakes (some of which I know very well having lived in the Buttermere, Cockermouth and Keswick areas during the early-mid 1990s) has been really devastating.

Here in Wales it's now feeling distinctly cooler (there was actually a frost this morning) - and the last couple of days have been dryish with a brisk breeze, so the garden is gradually becoming a little less sodden. Here's hoping for more dry weather to come, and a few sunny days wouldn't come amiss!

Stop Press: Met Office declares November 2009 as the wettest month on record!

Water, Water, Everywhere . . .

Got up today to more rain (after a pretty wet day yesterday), not for too long though as the blue skies pushed their way through. I don't think one breezy sunny afternoon is going to do much to dry us out though - with more rain on the way next week.

The university playing fields in town were a veritable lake when we drove past them earlier - and then we discovered that we had a lake of our own (well relatively speaking!).

A small pond had formed at the bottom of the garden, where water drains in from the field behind us, and hopefully drains out through a pipe into the field next door. Martin got the drain rods out and we soon heard the water gushing away, so we're back to a soggy puddle now.

The garden itself isn't too far off achieving lake status of its own though - a good half of it is so waterlogged that it's actually pooling at the bottom of the path leading up to the wood 'shed'.

Drainage strategies are already under consideration . . .