cumbria floods in appleby

we have had i bit of rain this week in fact bloody loads of it
in just over a day we got four and a half inches of it - but considering it has hardly stopped raining for the past few weeks there was no where for it to goso hey presto it flooded the flood alarms went off in the morning and everyone put out the sand bags and the flood barriers came up - no problem they thought just another flood we are used to it - it happens often here ......

nope not this time, this was a lot worse than normal in just over an hour it was up and over the river bank and over the main road - a rise of about 6 to 8 foot from the normal height of the river

as you can see from the pictures no one is panicking they are just getting on with it - it has happened before and it will happen again - lots of expence and inconvenience not to mention huge amounts of cleaning up and drying things out

but appleby is a resiliant place and we will get over it give it a week or so and all will be back to normal - most normal visitors wont even know anything ever happened here

so why is this - look at the last picture and see why - big flood defences - these were put in years ago a great expence and keep the main part of the town from flooding

these are a combination of physical barriers and large water pumps which up to press have worked well - appleby with its history of flooding was well ahead of the game and worked hard to prevent flooding in the future - looks like it is time for an update but at least it saved us from the worst

my heart goes out to the people of the other towns who were flooded - cockermouth,workington,maryport,keswick etc - lets just hope their councils all bite the bullet and re-do their flood defences before the next freak storm - which seem to happen more often now with this global warming lark - and a special mention to the police officer who lost his life at workington doing his job trying to get people away from a bridge before it was washed away from underneath him - to his family our thoughts are with you

bathroom update - getting there

i am quite proud of this photo - i know it doesnt look like much but it is the start of the next major task to do with the bathroom

this is the new fixed shower head and bracket on the wall ready to be plumbed in - so getting the shower working again

got the idea from ones we saw at b & q priced at about 2 to 3 hundred pounds for the set

i figured i just needed the bracket and big shower head for what i wanted to do so we set about trying to find them and at respectable price - well done to

e-bay again £10 - had to go to leeds to pick it up but still cheap so - job done

as you can see here the bath is done now and i made a bath panel from the same stuff i did the walls with

it looks good and is flush with the sides of the bath so takes up less space than the proper one which stuck out about 2 inch - its only a small bathroom

the new toilet is in and works well - the toilet seat was another e-bay find brand new of course - there is an e-bay shop that does loads of good designs and we liked this one

have put some paint on the new walls but it will take a few coats i think but it should look ok in the end

also we have done the floor - it is stick on lino tiles - we have used these before and as long as you hardboard the floor level they are great and never move - quick and effective

you can see on this one how patchy the walls are - as i said a few more coats of paint - and a bit of polyfiller on this bit should sort it

we are sanding the walls down beteen coats as we would like a smooth finish - hard work but worth the end result

the laundry basket is new as well our lass got it as it matches the theme - she is good at doing that sort of thing

you know the score

- men build houses but women make them into homes -