First report

Up this morning to a flooded back patio, with the soakaway under the back lawn - which probably reaches down into the chalk - for once failing to cope with all the water flowing down towards the house.

Flooding which meant that the air brick underneath the kitchen window which is supposed to ventilate the cavity wall was under water and that water was quite possibly getting under the floor of the extension - with the water bar arrangements for this last being none too clever, a consequence of extending one's house into the side of a hill. The things they got up to in the 1960's.

All would have been well had they thought to include in the floor of the garage an open gulley, connecting the back patio to the front drive. A little to the left of the green hose in the snap left. But in their defence, the soakaway only very rarely fails.

With the snap left have been taken after about an hour of baling and wet feet - my two pairs of wellington boots having been retired years ago, on grounds of non-use.

I might also say that when we moved into this house in the late 1980's, there used to be a lot more water about than has been the case in recent years - with occasional standing water on the back garden and plenty of water washing down into the soakaway.

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