When is a road not a road?

As a result, I didn't make it to the office, and neither did countless others, thanks to the deluge we'd had overnight. By this point, I'd negotiated several flooded roads successfully, having had to avoid the main dual carriageway A12 due to it being flooded and eventually closed. I approached this, the worst and final flood I encountered on this alternative route, with a significant degree of caution and circumspect. Ahead of me was a van and two similar sized cars in the queue and on the opposite side of the road facing us a BMW. It had apparently successfully driven through the worst of it, only to come to a halt a few yards from the end. 

The van proceeded with some vigour and made it through, creating a bow wave in the process. The first car set off and made it through and on it went and then the second. I did my best to mirror the fortunes of the BMW and as it turned out I managed it with remarkable accuracy.

Hours passed with me at the side of the road, watching mixed fortunes of other drivers passing through. Several others didn't make it either and the worst affected had the same car as me. A low-slung air-intake was to blame on our particular model of car. 

Of course I've learned from this experience, and it turns out that an air filter makes a very good water filter. But thanks to a long and convoluted intake path through the filter, turbo and intercooler, the day was saved by a relay home by the nice man from the AA, a new air filter and some disconnecting of pipes to drain out the remaining water. Fortunately, very little had made it into the engine, which can be curtains!