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Strange days

Head Rambles Posted on by

Yesterday was a very strange day.

It started at six, which wasn’t intentional. I just woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep. One of those things that happens with age.

I pottered around for a while and then toddled down to the village to meet a friend for coffee. He is from Somerset in England, so the conversation turned to Cheddar [yes – of cheese fame]. I had spent a summer there in 1968. When I was there, there was a very severe storm that washed out whole swathes of the area.

You lot thing you invented Global Warming and flash floods. You don’t know what you are talking about!!

Anyway, I went home to have a quiet doze, but of course the coffee had kicked in. Anyway, for some strange reason, this blog wouldn’t leave me alone. It was as if the whole world had suddenly discovered it. So I had to spend the day replying to comments, and trying to get my brain together.

Then I got an e-mail from my friend – he had discovered a website that documents the floods of 1968. I read through it. Wow! I was mentioned. OK, it was a little bit obscure, but if you go to Part Twelve, and look down to the bit about Cheddar, you’ll see how “Mr.Gerald Robertson and eleven of his staff were trapped all night”. That was me! No. Not Gerald Robinson. I was one of the eleven. My moment of fame on the web, and I didn’t even know about it!

cheddar.jpg

I wrote to the website. Well, I wrote to the bloke who wrote the website, if you want to be pedantic. I got a reply this morning. He wants my story and my photos, because apparently photographs of the flood are rare. I suppose people were being too preoccupied with saving their own skins and forgot about cameras. Some people are very selfish.

I discovered later yesterday that someone had Digged [Dug?] one of my old posts which accounts for some of the traffic. It actually got 7 Diggs. And it was an old post.

Life is never dull.

And today I have a hangover.

I never touched a drop last night.

Honest.

I hate that.

 

Comments

Strange days — 16 Comments

  1. That big storm didn’t just affect England that time. It was particularly devastating here as well. Of course I was nowhere even close to being born at that time but at home we have lots of pictures of the damage that was done.

    If I can find the time (and a scanner!) I might post them on my own site some time. They are pretty interesting. The storm itself totally devastated the caravan parks in Youghal and around. There was massive damage done to the sea wall on the light house hill (the main road from Cork to Waterford at the time) and it was powerful enough to break the two navigation buoys out in the bay from their moorings and wash them up into a small beach in the town.

  3. @Robert – The more I hear about that storm, the bigger it gets! The bloke I wrote to says he is going to put my photos up on the Web. You’ll see mine, now let’s see yours 😉

    @Grannymar – It’s just a slitting headache now. Don’t you be going giving us frights like that again!!

  4. You see it’s not the drops that get ya’ but the large glasses that hold an entire pint.

  5. Brianf. At the risk of repeating myself, the last pint I had was on my holiday the other week. Maybe there was something in the coffee?

  6. Don’t tell me you’re on that ‘Cork White’ again, Grandad?

    I hope you’ve laid in a bloody good supply of it, anyway!

  7. Cork White? Wassat? Gin and milk? [runs to jax and throws up] Yech!

    No. Nothing stronger than Green Label, dammit.

  8. Grandad,

    The flood website is excellent.

    I particularly like mention of the traffic warden on Page 16 – would you find that devotion to public service nowadays? Never concerned with his own life, he carried on regardless, that’s the real old British stiff upper lip for you.

  9. Heh! 🙂 We could do with him in the village to clamp a few SUVs!!

    It is a good website all right. He has put a lot of work into it.

  10. This is a massive post, da! I was wondering when you were going to tell that story. You must’ve been bricking it when you first felt the effect…

  11. I feel hungover today and I didn’t touch a drop last night either.

    Just 5 pints of lager.

  12. @K8 – What are you on about? First felt the effect? Massive post?

    @Johnny – Welcome! That’s what you get from drinking out of damp glasses.

    P.S. When am I being invited over to join the podcast?

  13. Please post those pics Grandad. I would love to see them. A cousin of mine was just caught up in the recent flooding in Sheffield. He had to spen the night at his work. What a bummer!! Luckily he had just flown back from Dublin and had an overnight bag with him.

  15. Oh Bugger!! It looks like I’m going to have to do a blog post about that storm.

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