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My intention this morning was to head up to Pitempton to see how the Dronley Burn was doing after all the wind and rain of the past few days. When I was last there, the level of the burn had risen about eight inches, and it had already burst its banks in a few places between Bridgefoot and Pitempton. It was threatening to overwhelm the bridge at Bridgefoot, and had already burst over the old road bridge at Pitempton, and some of the houses in the area in between these two places had new swimming pools in their back gardens. The weather has been absolutely appalling, and the city of Carlisle was flooded when the River Eden burst its banks. Carlisle is a place I know well from my BT days when I spent a lot of time there planning the route of the fibre cables from Carlisle to Dumfries. Although the area south of Gretna is technically England, our territory extended to Longtown, which is about 2 miles south of the border, and about 6 miles from Carlisle - so we took responsibility for taking the cables all the way to the English city's telephone exchange, then our colleagues in Penrith took over. Way back then, I had a girlfriend from Harker, just outside Longtown, who was studying at Strathclyde University. Anyway, I digress. With the terrible weather, and the news telling us that there were flood alerts on the River Tay at Perth and Dunkeld (and quite possibly Dundee as well), I was thinking that the Dronley Burn must be on the verge of bursting out of its banks at Pitempton, and I thought that, given there are only fields at that part, it might make an interesting photo. However, the fates conspired against me, and I ended up not having the time to get over. You see, I have too much work to be getting one with -- taking notes, fiddling... filling out my tax return (nothing like leaving it until the very last minute!), arguing with Portuguese people who insist they know the name of my country better than I do, etc. -- to be galavanting off photographing flooded burns, and by the time my working day is over, it is far too dark to be galavanting off trying to photograph flooded burns - even if I could see them. Never mind: tomorrow is another day.

On my desk