When I really should have done nothing but eat brownies all day...

Toots and I spent three hours, three whole hours, cleaning and tidying the wreckage that was once our garden today.

We're a bit famous in the UK for talking a lot about the weather, but there's a very simple and logical reason for that.

It's because we get so much of the stuff.

There has been a lot of flooding in Northern Ireland the last couple of days, now not the Westlink (spectacular demonstration of DOE workmanship flooding), but flooding nonetheless.

I had to leg it out into ankle deep water in my little back garden yesterday morning to save the cat.

The poor cat who was more than a little confused by my attempts to grab her and get her into the house and out of the rapidly rising water. She scratched, spat and bit before finally scurrying past me and straight up to her armpits in the swimming pool that was now my patio.

And even though I'm convinced that by that point she must have realised that my trying to get hold of her were in her best interests in the first place, she still managed to give me a dirty look, like it was all my fault she now resembled a drowned rat.

We dried off and stood at the kitchen counter with hot coffee watching the torrent of water pour down the steps in my garden, resigned to the fact that there was absolutely nothing we could do but watch and wonder why we'd bothered paying a guy to install a second drain in the back garden (which clearly wasn't helping at all) when we first moved into the house and woke one morning to watch a full sized wheelie bin float past the kitchen window.

And I'm not sure I'll ever forget the sight of my husband wrapping a freshly laundered fluffy bath sheet around the cat, scratching her under the chin and asking if she was ok, while I stood there soaked to the bones, with actual leaves (I kid you not) stuck to my shins, dripping on to the door mat without so much as a thank you to be heard, wondering;

1. Why I'd even bothered to put shoes on before running out the back door, and;
   
   
2. Why, when there was a perfectly good pair of riggers lying beside said back door, I'd chosen my cute new pumps.

"Ah, sure don't mind me, it's more hygienic to drip dry anyhow, and your welcome BTW!"

So today we dealt with the aftermath.

We unblocked the drains, scooping out entire plants never mind just leaves, we shovelled large quantities of mud and gak off the stone path at the front of the house, we lifted entire land masses out of the gutters, poked holes in the lawn to allow the water to drain away and brushed in sand and finally swept up the debris lying all over the place.

Finally, Toots and I were finished. We got a shower, jumped into to some warm clothes and settled down on the sofa with a hot cup of tea just in time to watch the heaven's open!