View from the high ground

It was, I think, Governor Winthrop, one of the founders of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, who said that politicians must think of themselves as a house on a hill. I have never been sure if he meant that they had the advantage of being ‘looked up to’ or the problem of being constantly visible to voters on the plains below. The last couple of weeks have, however, left me in no doubt about the benefits of literally occupying the high ground. The rain, which has swamped the road to junction 29 of the motorway, has passed us by. It has fallen in great quantities. That was only to be expected, since it rains on the just and unjust alike. But that which has not been absorbed into our porous limestone landscape has rushed away to the valleys. Sometimes it has flowed down the road outside my house like a living stream.