CHESHIRE,DERBYSHIRE AND SOUTH MANCHESTER - WATER

Really the flood damage stretches across great areas of the north from Yorkshire through Lancashire to Cheshire, Manchester and Derbyshire. People who had never faced flooding had to come to terms with the awful reality which is a monster ravaging all your property as bad as any avalanche or land slip. The latest problem an 1831 dam associated with the old canal system has started to weaken and flood with the possibility that it will break open, thus Whaley Bridge has been evacuated. We were out today doing some shopping at Handforth Dean , this area saw problems with the floods yesterday and the shelves of M&S were very empty in the food department, there were lots of stories being related about how people in that area had survived the latest downpours.

It has certainly been bad and we have had water rise but thankfully draining down the drive to the road and the gulleys were cleaned out this week. We need to get our soak away drains cleared and this is a sharp reminder why. I'm not sure if all the timber I'd reserved from the old office shelving has survived intact, its all under tarps but sat in water for quite a while. Amazingly our washing when we got back from the shops was almost dry, we got it indoors before the next deluge came. Tonight is pub night, just a week ago I was downing more than usual after an exhausting day working in the tremendous heat. The flowers in our garden are quite happy so far, we've never seen growth this much on our plants it can't all be down to Miracle Grow!

I've managed to get a lot more photos filed and more digital download options on to the PMP shop right up to our Irish trip. I picked up a lot of sweets and nibbles for the Ukraine trip today. The case is being packed, I'll manage with my cheap travel tripod although it isn't ideal I wouldn't want to lose my best one. There isn't a lot of demand for foreign subject DVDs let alone ones on trolleybuses and trams and future trips are just as likely be based around wildlife or relaxation with transport stitched on. The revenue from Youtube will start to flow into the PMP account next later this month, for the past few months we have been way behind on covering costs. My usual appeal for folk to use the PMP shop rather than keep fat cat Americans in stetsons. Among the photo files sorted today was our trip to the South West so lets recall some of the buses we saw.