Took me 75 mins to do 7 miles this PM!
Floods everywhere, every little dip in the road filled by torrents of water running off the hills and fields, numerous roads closed, the deepest I went through was only about 8", apparently it had subsided, a broken-down SEAT was testement to its previous depth. Various other abandoned cars including a nice looking 56 plate E-Class just up the road from here. I turned around at one point, it looked too deep to me though others were trying it, not sure if they got through. The intake is not too low on the Mondeo, nevertheless I drive very slowly through the water so as to avoid a bow wave, I also drive along the crown of the road where it is most shallow and to avoid vehicles coming the other way pushing a bow wave ahead of them.
Worst I have known it around here though - and also snow on top of the Mendips, slushy and slippery!
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Don't tell me this was at the Send to hilperton rounabout as there was a Merc & red seat & alfa & rover 75 abandoned! water was very deep. It lifted my runabout up as I drove through!
Doc
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I remember when I lived in Somerset that sometimes on the "levels" ( the very flat bits ) the road would quickly just disappear under water in heavy rain. You would begin to realise that there was no reference point as to where the roads edge was. Very scary when you knew there was a wide and deep drainage ditch either side of the road !
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Lucky I left the Landie on an Optimiser charge whilst I was away. The little snorkel kit that Mrs P bought me has come out of its packing and duly fitted !
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What you wear in the privacy of your own home is your affair ! ;-)
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The little snorkel kit that Mrs P bought me has come out of its packing
Have you got a mask and flippers to go with it PU?
:-)
Edited by cheddar on 11/01/2008 at 17:45
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Like that today Shoespy, with a name like that you didn't work for Clarks did you?
Do you mean Seend IJ, if so, no, I was further west.
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Long time ago Cheddar but guilty as charged !
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There's no business like shoe business - as the say in Street! Well heeled lot ;-)
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yep sorry mis-spelt it. Forgot to mention on saloon x types you can as an extra have folding back seats. I ordered that as an extra in mine. there isn't a lot of difference in storage as the saloon has a much deeper boot than the est & with the seats down I get most things in. Folding seats was an expensive option
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>>folding back seats>> I remember that being an option when I thought about one about 5 years ago, the one I drive yesterday had that option though missed out on cruise and trip, also the elec driver's seat was not as sophisticated as the Mondeo, the reach being manual.
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Very happy to be working from home at the moment! Has tipped down all day in Weston, just heard from a friend who has said there's about 2 inches of snow round Longleat and was snowing heavily as he crossed Salisbury plain.
M5/ M4 interchange is flooded it seems, and the M5 shut between there and Gloucester due to the weather.
Regarding snow in the UK, was in Poland for last half of November on business. Had quite a heavy snowfall one night, that covered the roads. Within 2 hours the minor side road where the flat I was staying in had been gritted, and the ploughs been through leaving clear roads.
Driving standards were a bit scary though. Before the roads were cleared saw one car overtake another, on a very short straight coming up to a cross roads.
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M5/ M4 interchange is flooded it seems and the M5 shut between there and Gloucester due to the weather.
There are/were certainly problems! I left Aztec West on the North-east of Bristol at 4.30. 1st mile to the M4/5 interchange took an hour. Next 7 or 8 miles on the A38 took another hour. Rejoined M5 at J14 as far as J12. 30 mile commute took 2 1/2 hours in all.
Still, this is absolutely nothing compared with 'flood day' back in July. I luckily had that afternoon off (unluckily my house got flooded ;-) ), but it took my parents around 9 hours to do 40 miles from Bristol to their place West of Gloucester. Many did not get home at all or had to abandon their cars to do so.
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Was in Weston (hospital) for work before xmas... and I need to go back. With this weather trying to avoid a drive to/from the north west.
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Aye; it's grim oop West....
[Though the latest radar shows the near-stationary front, that's been sitting across the Midlands all day, now fizzling fast and starting to clear eastwards towards the Wash.]
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Though the five day forecast for here is:
heavy rain
light rain
heavy rain
heavy rain
heavy rain
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Not just the west country - main access into our village - flooded by about 8 inches of water. Then outside the Indian takeaway - about 6 inches of water standing. It snowed further up the road. All good fun really
(South Shropshire - Cleobury Mortimer)
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Didn't your village cop it in the summer as well.
(Looks as if the Landie will need sonar as well as a snorkel !)
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Cheddar - whereabouts are you?
We managed to escape the bulk of the floods in the summer, but Tenbury is only 7miles away that did get most of it in the summer.
Luckily for me the tank (THAT shogun that I took a gamble with) is now up and running and I took it to work. Wouldn't have fancied driving through some of the flood waters in the Golf with its front splitter about 3 inches of the ground!
This is one of the reasons I bought the Shogun.
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>>>> Took me 75 mins to do 7 miles this PM!
Cheddar, how lucky are you?????!!!
I left Slough at 2-30 this afternoon for a journey home to Gloucester that can be done in 90 minutes.
Given that it was a Friday I thought I would be home at 5pm at the latest.
At 430pm my Sat Nav told me I was 8 miles from home which would take me 11 minutes.
Thanks to the snow and ice and the non existent gritters the next three miles took me SIX AND THREE QUARTER HOURS and I arrived home at 11-35pm
This year is really dragging. When is it Christmas?
; o )
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While on the subject of 4x4's I was not really surprised that many arrogant owners of these tonka toys felt it was ok to treat the road conditions as some sort of entertainment by overtaking traffic by driving along grass verges and up the middle of two dual carriageway lanes.
The funny thing was that as they had made a decision to get to the front of the queue first they were turned around and sent the other way.
Those of us with patience and consideration for the others stuck in the traffic eventually got through after the snow ploughs had been out while the tonka boys were probably trying to fathom out another way home
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>>SIX AND THREE QUARTER HOURS>>
That is a nightmare!
Strange weather yesterday, that car was saying 0 deg though it was pouring rain then as you went up a hill it turned to snow then back to rain on the otherside, all the snow is long gone today, I hope the forecast saying five days of heavy rain is wrong because the ground must be sodden, saturated.
As I say the forecast here is still heavy rain all day though it hasnt rained since last evening and is much milder, infact the sun is out.
All quiet on the western front!
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Thanks to the snow and ice and the non existent gritters the next three miles took me SIX AND THREE QUARTER HOURS and I arrived home at 11-35pm
Could ye not have just walked the last 3 miles? :-)
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David I know what you mean and had I been wearing trainers or work boots I might have walked but I was in 'proper' shoes and at the risk of sounding like a tart I would have gone flat on my face in seconds.
I was lucky that I was on my own and didn't have young children in the car like some others did
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>You would begin to realise that there was no reference point as to where the roads edge was. Very scary when you knew there was a wide and deep drainage ditch either side of the road ! <
Especially if you come over a humpbacked bridge on a dry road as I did once in the middle of the night near Creech St Michael and unexpectedly dive into what looks like a giant lake - when you know there's a deep ditch either side. Very unnerving. That time I managed to stop (the Maxi) and back straight out of it. The clutch slipped for the next 15 miles but never showed any sign of distress after that.
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Why don't these posts ever go where they are supposed to?
I've just remembered, when I was working in Bridgwater about 14 years ago a carload of migrant agricultural workers did exactly that out in the wilds near the coast around Stockland Bristol. The car and it's four drowned occupants was recovered next morning.
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Mike or Cheddar or anyone else who knows - I have been racking my brain but for the life of me can't remember what they call those big deep roadside ditches in Somerset. I know they have a local name for them and now it's bothering me ! Anyone know ?
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The Bristol Channel?
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Thanks JohnPug ! I knew there was a special name. I quite like Westpigs' version as well though ;-)
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Eek. Just seen for the forecast for Oxford:
www.bbc.co.uk/weather/5day.shtml?id=2935
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Cotswolds just NW of Oxford, rivers are all flooded already, but nowhere near as bad as in July (still repairing bridges here).
Mind you 5 days of heavy rain is not what we need just at this time!
Cheddar, is the A370 open between Weston and Bristol....have to go down next week and this could be important?
cheers
StarGazer
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A370 not effected as far as I am aware.
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