I’m dreaming of a bright Christmas

THE road beside my house on west Dartmoor was transformed into a river on Friday, clear and fast-flowing rainwater sped past and down the hill.

I half expected to see salmon running up it to spawn.

And it was still flowing by Sunday evening, though you no longer needed welly boots to wade across.

The rain was unrelenting on Friday so I knew what was coming. Falling onto saturated ground it simply sheeted off onto roads, with culverts and ditches unable to cope.

Across the Westcountry fields became inundated, rivers were placed on flood alert and some residents had to be evacuated in south east Cornwall as their homes were surrounded by water.

Where I live the water fortunately never gets inside any houses. Instead it flows down the sloping main village road, sometimes for a day or two until it gradually subsides and the drains are once again able to cope.

When first moving here twenty years ago it rained for 100 days – I only know because the Western Morning News was running a daily tally, and I wondered why no one warned me just how wet the Westcountry could be, let alone the western side of Dartmoor.

Any rain clouds sweeping in off the Atlantic hit the high ground and dump much of their load, well, exactly where I live!

Some days it can be raining on west Dartmoor, but if you drive east the sky clears and you find yourself enjoying the sun, looking in your rear view mirror at a dark cloud snagged across the top of the moor.

In Tavistock the River Tavy becomes a completely different beast after a rainstorm, turning from charming rocky river fed by moorland streams into white water rapids in a matter of a few hours.

It is quite a sight and the awesome power of the flow is something to marvel at, flexing its muscles and rising so high that the arches of bridges spanning it are reduced to slivers of light above the solid mass of water.

We are told that extreme weather is what we can expect more of with global warming. Age-old ditches and drains on Dartmoor may simply be unable to cope and flash floods could become the norm.

One gets used to wet weather, but the driving rain – of the kind I have only experienced elsewhere in tropical rainforests – does start to dampen the mood somewhat.

So it is encouraging to see the forecast for Christmas is a little less sodden. No white Christmas, of course, but at least not such a wet Christmas.