Sunday and water

Yesterday my daughter and granddaughter came down for the weekend unexpectedly, and as we had two signs up by the bridge, stating road closed both ways, I was not sure how to pick them up from Malton Station.  I devised a way through the village of Salton, through Butterwick to Barton-Le-Street.  Of course the real problem was that it was raining since the night before, so as I set off down narrow lanes full of water with small rivers gushing under bridges, I became slightly worried.  Bedraggled pheasants sat in the rain and there was a couple of large raptors on the hedges.  Light coloured I could not make out what they were but thrilling all the same.  Not one car did I meet on that 10 mile journey, past farms with water gushing down their drives and I was relieved to eventually get onto the main road and leave behind great ponds of water that had accumulated in the small lanes.

Train was late of course, stuck in York, but after some shopping at Asda we returned home via a main road through Pickering and Kirkby Misperton.  As the afternoon went on, so did the rain, a great pool of water collected outside our house stretching past the Sun Inn, and there was great swooshes as people drove through the water.  I checked on the river level, 20 feet from our back garden and it had gone from a gentle meander trickling of about 18 inches, to three metres and was just topping the bank, luckily it went down pretty quickly.  The water runs off Rosedale Moor.

Stand well back, for some cars rushed through

the wake of a car making miniature waves

Lillie excited by flooding

My daughter who lives in the West Yorkshire town of Todmorden, is used to flooding in their basement.  The Caldervale valley she lives in is steep sided, the roads are narrow and water both from the river and canal rush through.  A few years back, the government gave money for pumps to be installed in the houses, some did, others used the money elsewhere.  Karen's pump works well, it is just not wise to keep stuff down there though.

As I have made a note of the villages, it is interesting how each village has acquired its name.  Barton-le-street, also Appleton-le-street are on the old Roman road from Malton, which used to be a garrison Roman town.  Barton refers to barley growing, whereas Appleton is pretty self explanatory.  Note the  Norman le as well.  Was Butterwick the place where butter making took place, low lying pasture land for dairy cows.  Ton and Wic refer to small hamlets.

What came out of yesterday's journey was the need to explore more, before all those rich buggers from up South, buy land for profit and turn England into a vast industrialised farming land.