Immediate action

At 8.46 this morning our landline and my two mobiles (don't ask) all rang at the same time. Two seconds later both mobiles beeped with an incoming text. Finally - our flood warning! We seem to have skipped level 3 (Flooding is possible. Be prepared) and moved straight to level 2 (Flooding is expected. Immediate action required).

So I:
1. Made the Christmas cake and put it in the oven - adhering to the Marie-Antoinette theory of politico-gastronomy that in a crisis people should be offered cake.
2. Moved a guitar, a violin and a saxophone from the ground floor to the attic. Contemplated moving one or two other things but put that off until tomorrow.
3. Located my wellies in the shed, put on some thick warm socks, pulled on the wellies and took my camera for a walk. (Just behind this sports pavilion I found seagulls swimming around football goalposts.)
4. Got home and took the cake out of the oven.

The house now smells of cinnamon, which is better than yesterday when I tried to light the wood stove with damp kindling and filled the room with smoke (I wasn't quite quick enough with the camera otherwise yesterday's blip would have been smoke billowing picturesquely over the carpet).

My good wishes to all in N Wales and NE England, where things are much more serious than here.