After the flood

I set off in a rainstorm. Whether it is, or isn’t, caused by CO2 emissions triggering global warming, I’ve never seen an English monsoon season like this one. From our house, there’s a five-mile-long, single-track lane to negotiate before you can get anywhere. Normally in heavy downpours the water pours into the lane off the fields and lays in one or two low-lying dips. But in this new, more concentrated type of precipitation we’ve been getting, the lane itself is a live torrent.

At least the tempest and early darkness have kept other people indoors by their fires. I meet no other cars. A section of the lane where I’ve never seen standing water is flooded to the tops of my wheels. I lean out of the window and inch forward in first gear, hugging the hedge where I’m hoping the water might be shallower. But instead it gets deeper and starts coming in through the doors.