The Flood part 3 – Sunday

Continuing my personal story of the Gloucestershire floods of July 2007…

We were due at a christening in Cheshire on the Sunday – two days after the rains came. The rain had stopped, so we packed up the car and set off for the day.

 

We were like celebrities up there. Everyone had seen how badly our area had been hit.

 

 

‘Are you OK? It’s great to see you here, after everything that’s happened.’

 

 

But it hadn’t happened to us. I felt a bit of a fraud really. It had happened around us, but we weren’t affected directly.

 

 

Just after the ceremony, my phone rang. It was my mum. ‘The water’s going off. It could be off for two days.’

 

 

What?! The water going off?! How could that be?! Too much water and suddenly we have NO water?! But it was true, the water works had flooded. There would be no water coming out of the taps for a couple of days. A couple of DAYS! WITHOUT WATER?!

 

I felt sick and anxious. No water! No water to drink. No water for showers. No water to wash the clothes. No water for cooking. No water to wash the cutlery. No water for the toilet.

 

All of a sudden we WERE directly affected. All I wanted to do was get home.(Irrational really, seeing as there was no water, and there was plenty in Cheshire.)

 

 

My mother-in-law had one and a half 2 litre bottles of mineral water. So we took those. Normally I wouldn’t touch anything that had been open on the side (even water) and not in the fridge with a barge pole, but this was an emergency situation! We needed every bit of water we could get. We stopped at the garageon the way out of the village and bought another six bottles.

 

 

At the service station we bought two bottles of M&S brand hand sanitiser. I’ve never been allowed to buy M&S hand sanitiser since – my husband says the smell makes him feel sick because it reminds him of the floods. I also nicked a few disposable cups and sets of cutlery from the Food Court.

 

 

When we got home – the water was still on! Hooray! I am embarrassed to admit this,but we all did it. We filled the bath. We had a shower. We put the dishwasher on. We put the washing machine on (twice). Who would have known that using the dishwasher could feel so good?

To be continued…

Author: Sarah Mummy

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