Riding through a drowned world
As the flood waters peaked again, I set off to ride through a landscape turned largely to liquid.
Everything seemed to be covered in either water or mud. The monsoon months between July and December had been the wettest on record for the UK as Storms Babet, Ciarán, Debi, Elin, Fergus and Gerrit battered the country, followed by Henk in the new year.
The effects of the latest storm on my favourite trails were predictably messy and I splattered along a sloppy farm track pondering what the future might hold. There's no denying (except, perhaps, by the most delusional) that climate change is leading to heavier rainfall. And thanks to our society’s love of draining wetlands and building on flood plains, when the engorged clouds burst, the run-off has nowhere to go. Water spills into streets, wrecks homes, wipes out crops and ruins bike rides.