Sunday was another 'make the most of the sunshine and get some fresh air' kind of day. (following a wedding reception on Saturday evening!)
So Abi and I wandered up Worcestershire Beacon, because I haven't been up there for a while. (plus the added bonus of indulging in my occasional hobby of logging trigpoints)
Sugarloaf Hill
I like the Malverns, partly because they're so accessible. Loads of very obvious footpaths scratched into the landscape, plenty of car parking options, and no real need for a map.
Not the place to go if you want to get away from other people though - the toposcope was particularly busy on this occasion, and not surprisingly, as clear sky = actually being able to see what it describes!
So the flooding got worse, leaving me semi stranded due to road closures. Luckily I can work from home, and didn't have to wade far to reach 'dry land' and friends willing to give me lifts to other places.
Including to Lynmouth. The East Lyn is well beyond my kayaking abilities, but others are good/mad enough to run it, so I went along to take photos - a much needed change of scenery!
And an ideal opportunity to play with shutter speeds again (and, to a lesser extent, the variable ND filter).
Shooting in aperture priority, this is a 1/6s exposure. I'm reliably informed that the water was as cold as it looks!
Yet more flooding. I basically live on the flood plain, so there are quite a lot of fields that I haven't seen much of for several months as they've been under water.
Which is fine, because that's what flood plain is there for.
What's less good is when the rivers are flooded, the ground is saturated and it won't stop raining. I.e. right now.
this is not the river
On Monday the drains gave up being able to drain (and/or backed up), and the main road started to vanish into a series of large puddles. When I waded back from my tennis lesson it was completely covered at some points - eek. Sandbags everywhere, cars moved to higher ground, and nervous looking locals - some with flooded gardens/driveways already
Upstream the Severn is at record levels in places, and we had a lot more rain today. So that'll be fun when it arrives. Whatever happens it's going to take a long time to return to normal. One of my short local cycling loops is under 5ft of water in places, I feel very sorry for the people who live nearby.
tags: walking 
