MRS DOWN'S DIARY

One member of our party has already had to return home as his home is knee deep in floodwater. He rang up to report a 4lb bream had been left stranded in his village main street. "We're catching more fish here than all of you lot in Scotland".

By the time this article is printed I hope that the waters have subsided but there will still remain, from the news we are receiving, a massive clear up operation.

Before we left, the yards where the bulls are kept had already flooded as the gutters were unable to cope with the sheer volume of water coming down. My neighbour, who shares the use of our greenhouse, was trapped in with the tomatoes and peppers for nearly an hour. What is really distressing John though is the fact that a lot of the corn has all been knocked down by the rain. "We had one of the best look ons for years" he said "I was expecting a really good harvest, but I don't know how it is going to turn out now."

Once the corn goes down, and stays down, it will not ripen properly. It may even drop out of the ears and, as the ground is so wet, germinate and start to grow through the fallen crop. Then when the time comes to harvest what corn there is, the combines will struggle to get under the crop. The corn will probably be only half the bushel weight, if that. Plus, with the ground so wet, even though it is still some time off, any weight of machinery is going to find it difficult to travel without risk of getting bogged down. We have friends who are ready to go in with their pea viners. They are massive machines and will probably disappear without trace.

John is expecting to have to keep an even more vigilant eye on the sheep and cows feet than he does normally. With such wet conditions, the sheep especially, can soon develop all kinds of manky (technical term) hooves.

For full feature see West Sussex Gazette July 11