Again this year Christmas was white, but this time with snow. The fells were completely white, and still are, although the snow has largely gone from the lower fields. But the ice is lingering, and making the drive slippery and roads hereabouts treacherous. The scenery is magnificent and it was a joy to be out in the sunshine of Christmas Day walking in the cold mountain air and taking in the beauty of the Lake District.
Southwaite Bridge reopened to one way traffic the Tuesday before Christmas. For a short while we had our own set of traffic lights at each end of the bridge. Now we have cones on each side of the bridge so that only one way traffic is possible, and the lights have been removed. As you cannot see over the hump of the bridge from either side, no doubt some interesting encounters will result.
The river is so low now that it looks perfectly innocuous, belying its recent destructive behaviour. The fields are still littered with debris, though, and the bridge at Lorton that was washed away that night is still a disconcerting empty space. Someone said that 100 acres of land down the Derwent is completely covered with stone and gravel from the flooding, which will require considerable work to clear. 100 acres is a lot of land.
One of the flood families staying here had their flooded house burgled last week. How low people can sink. Their children's toys and electronic equipment were removed, and some jewellery which had little intrinsic value but was full of memories. So now they have two insurance claims running simultaneously, which have to be dealt with separately although the effect in total is that they have lost everything. The local paper picked up the story, perhaps just one example of how much worse things can get, even when you must surely think they are as bad as they can be.
Yet, despite all the sad stories, people remain cheerful and determined to get through this and make things better afterwards. Cockermouth is still a lovely town and will hopefully be even better when the £100 million insurance monies have been spent on restoring it.
