So we woke up to heavy rain ..... persistent heavy rain ..... bucketing it down ..... loads of it.
Now we live at the bottom of a gently sloping valley, and at the bottom is the River Brede, so the valley is it's catchment area. The valley was already very wet from previous rain, so we knew that within a couple of hours all that water was coming our way. The Brede has a habit of bursting it's banks and taking a short cut through our fields, so time to shift the sheep from a field I'm borrowing that actually borders the river. In they trotted, nonchalantly ignoring the rain, to our field.
Off to breakfast and as I glanced out of the kitchen window I could see white water overflowing the banks of the river and heading our way.
Before we could do anything the scene in the pictures below developed - fortunately the sheep had found a high spot barely large enough to contain them. Nothing we could do to move them - if I'd gone down with the tractor they'd have panicked and possibly got into a worse situation.
Last checked on them at 8 pm with a torch - could see pairs of eyes but couldn't count them as many pairs were reflections off the water !!!!
This morning - water virtually all gone, and sheep milling around gate waiting to be fed blissfully unconcerned how close they'd got to being washed away and out to sea through Rye Harbour
