Floods upon us

The day started out with a bit of drizzle. Dom had taken the Friday off so we could go and meet his best friend Paul and wife, Ellie and baby Ben in Cambridge. They were visiting family for two weeks and had wanted to get away from the crap weather they were having in Sweden, specifically Malmo.

The three of us got in the car and started heading for the M25. It started to rain quite heavily and for anyone that knows me, knows I have a fear of being in the car in bad weather at the best of times. Dom offered to turn around but I said to keep driving. It seemed a shame that just for my fears he would lose out on seeing friends but also wasting a day's leave.

So we carried on. And the rain came down hard. And I mean hard. It was starting to sit on the road and huge puddles were forming along the curbs. Any pedestrian couldn't avoid being covered by serious spray from slow moving traffic. Inside I began to panic. We were just turning onto the motorway when it really really started to come down. We were doing 15-20mph. You could barely see the car in front. Some lunatics were still traveling fast and that's when I knew I couldn't take this any longer. If there are idiots on the road driving in these conditions then I really feared for my family's life.

I burst into tears and asked Dom to turn around. He understood and so made way to the next junction off the motorway. Little did we realise that this junction would take us to where all the serious flooding was taking place. We pulled over thinking that the rain would subside. But we realised that the best thing to do was carry on and get home as soon as possible. This rain was not slowing down. If anything it was getting fiercer.

We'd never been down this route before but knew where we were heading. Drains were bursting and water was pouring into houses fronts. It had only been 30 minutes of rain and this was already a tragedy. We kept going heading into Wallington which was near to where we live. Down the high street traffic had just come to a halt. A bus had broken down and then just in front of it we noticed a dip in the road, full of water and also a person getting out of a submerged car. (the photos below show this situation a little while later).We turned off, not knowing where we were going but knowing we had to avoid bottoms of hills. The problem was, Wallington and other local areas were all built on hills. Luckily the A to Z was at hand. We found ourselves heading towards Carshalton and realised that the pond might be over flowing. We did a U-turn and drove parallel to the Carshalton High Street. We tried to find another way home but at the bottom of the hill it was always too flooded.

We headed on to Sutton which is on top of a hill. We thought we may as well do our shopping as we would be undercover and I needed the loo! It didn't seem that bad but in Asda the loos had been flooded and Matalan had been evacuated. I thought, 'oh shit we won't be able to get home.' I rang my friend who was stranded at a petrol station. She said her car had floated into the station. When she went in, she just burst into tears. She'd never been so scared before. I was beginning to panic. As ever Dom was cool and collected. But I still needed the loo! We decided to scrub round the shopping and see if we could get home via another route away from Carshalton. The nearer we got the more hope I had. It was looking better. There were a few deep areas but we got through. When we pulled into our drive it just looked like it had rained a bit. There was no sign of floods. Half an hour later the sun was shining.

Dom was hauled into work even though it was his day off and I was left thankful to be in the warmth and dry of our house. He travels into central London on a moped so was able to drive on the pavements. But on his journey he saw many cars stranded. Once in central London you would never have known what had been going on. The sun was shining and people were oblivious to the flood situation.

All I can say is that it has made me realise that unless the problem is on your door step, you don't really care or understand how people are struggling through such situations. I guess TV makes you numb almost. Having experienced it first hand, I will have more sympathy now to others. It has also made me think more about our climate. Do I really want to bring another child into this scary world?

1 year, 3 weeks and 6 days

On Saturday June 30th I finally gave up breast-feeding. I miss Meg. I really do. But it will make my life easier now. She has gone straight on to cow's milk which is why I waited so long to give up. I couldn't bare the thought of sterilizing bottles etc....such a shag! People tell me I have done amazingly well but to be honest breastfeeding was the easiest option. If Meg was hungry I simply got my boob out! I am proud that I did it for so long and pleased that I had such a long bonding time with Meg. I have to say, she hasn't looked for the breast at all which is a good thing. Any way, that was my mile stone achievement I wanted to share.

Take care