Shortly after writing this yesterday other events over took me. John came up to inform me that the cellar was flooded and far worse than back in the summer. Initially we assumed it was rapidly melting snow. There was far too much to bale out by hand. John went off to town to purchase a pump and while he was gone I discovered that there was a leak from the mains water pipe outside our back gate. I phoned the water company and very late last night two men came to fix the leak. Our water pump had been keeping the water at a level but it was not going down. However once the leak had stopped it began to go down. Eventually at about 2 am which of course became 3 am BST we switched it off and went to bed. When got up to make the tea today it was still at the same level but abut an hour later when we went down for breakfast it had all drained away. So now the newspaper is down to soak up the residue. the cat tray is back in place and everything is back to normal. During the week as food has been short a magpie has been raiding the sparrows meal worms.
