My Dog Daze

Indra has had very sporadic attendance to agility and Working trials classes recently.
he has had several leg injuries.

Three weeks ago he had a large ulcerated spot on his leg we were worried was a tumor. After a biopsy it turned out to be a scratch he had licked raw. last Monday he somehow lost a nail while we were out. No sign of it in the house or any damage to anything, but a lot of dramatic moping and crying.

So its been several weeks of reduced activity and vets visits. And little in the way of training. Mybe its just his way of skipping school.

We are settling in to our rented place now after a hectic month.
Things are finally progressing with the house renovation -though nothing seems to happen without us having to shout about it.

The doctors finally given me the all clear healthwise to enjoy our upcoming Mexico holiday. Which i feel I need.

Indra has been going to the beach the last month and loves it. He has finally learned to swim and now loves throwing himself into the surf.

We are finally seeing movement from the insurers and builders showed up this morning to start clearing the debris on the ground floor. Hopefully from here we will see steady progress.

Im on site in the top floor - it feels like a siege at the moment. The flood defenses have been hit equally hard with the whole works affected by the weather. The clay dam cant be put in except when conditions are optimal.

Im also seeing the doctors on a regular basis now as i seem to have a picked up some problems from wading about in the floodwater.

The death of one of the construction foremen nearby has been picked up by the press and is being reported as Weil's Disease by the gutter press. This hasnt been confirmed. However a number of workers and myself have been hit by flu/cold like symptomns so its being treated as a possibility.

During the day of the flood and the day after I had been wading up to the waist in sewage laden water with open cuts and grazes. By yesterday I was feeling achy and poorly and the cuts were infected. After speaking to one of the site managers - who assured me there was nothing to worry about, I knew that whatever the site workers were exposed to there was a fair chance I had been too. I arranged to see my doctors yesterday afternoon. By the time I got there the surgery had been bombarded by hundreds of calls by people believing themselves to be in danger of exposure. The doctor was fairly fed up of this and was understandably dismissive of the risks initially.

At no point in speaking to the nurses had I mentioned Weil's. I just wanted a checkup of the cuts. So the doctor reassured me with platitudes and explanations that they wouldn't prophylacticly treat for Weils- and that only the construction workers had been exposed. She then asked if that was ok with me.

At this point I reminded her I hadn't mentioned Weil's - and asked her to examine the cuts on my legs. While I explained id been in sewage contaminated water repeatedly over 2 days - in close proximity to the construction workers and with less protective gear. I was feeling fairly poorly at this point and a thorough examination followed. An abrupt reversal of her attitude followed with me sent immediately to the local hospital for a chest X-ray and blood tests and a course of Antibiotics.

Heres the thing though. At the moment the park is still full of pools of stinking sewage laden water, where kids are playing and people are walking. walking - no problem, minimal exposure. Kids playing are more likely to get it in cuts, grazes etc. Im amazed the council dont put warning signs up.

The same thing happened 7 years ago and kids were sailing around on rafts in a lake of contaminated water. Did anyone care then - no because no one died.

Its been a harrowing last few days.

At 7pm on the 6th of August I noticed the local river levels were getting high and notified the company responsible for building works in progress in the river course that there was a danger of flooding. I spoke to one of the contract managers who phoned the site foreman.

At this time i was assured ( just slightly patronisingly) that there were automatic monitoring systems in progress that would notify them if the levels reached danger levels and they would address the situation and if needed clear the river of their equipment. That there were staff living on site who would be available in any emergency.

At 10pm i went for another look and found the riverbed in full flood. The banks were overflowing and the river course still had obstructions in place.

Assuming things would be in place to address this I went to the flood works constuction site yard ( which is in front of my house) to see what they were doing to find only a security guard on site -as the rest of the guys were off at the site formans birthday party. The security guard far from implementing any plan went so far as to ask me what to do and who to call.

At this point my wife arrived home and was somewhat humoring me when I asked her to start packing up.
I called the council emergency line and obviously woke the emergency line operator who was about as much help as the thumb of a small dutch child. They promised to call back. An hour my wife wasnt humoring me as we were moving as much as we could upstairs above the flood level.

I still nursed vague hopes at this point that the house would be saved by the rain stopping and the river receding. In fact the next 4 hours saw most of a months rain in a 4 hour period. The local council were of no help and delivered exactly 4 sandbags to secure 3 air vents and 2 door agains the floodwater. Our nearest neighbours seem to have monopolised the sandbags and had ther windowsils sandbagged as well as the doors. The council guys disappeared with vague promised about bringing more - just as their flood line promised to call back with instructions. Neither were heard from again.

By midnight there was activity on the flood prevention scheme site. The security guard had managed to contact one of the site managers who (nearly singlehandedly) instituted heroic measures to stall the fising floodwater. Sadly the efforts of a few men at this point were drastically short of fulleffect. They had not the manpower available to clear the river course , nor to build an effective temporary floodwall. By this point the floodwaters had bypassed the partially completed flood defenses and were 12 feet from our house.

The site manager (a PR manager - i will never have a bad thing to say about PR managers again ) was up to the waist in filthy cold flood water trying to put a diversion in place - while the construction workers he had managed to scare up minced around avoinding getting wet or having to carry much in the way o heavy sandbags. In fact one of them tried to strike up a conversation with me about my dog and his new dog - which was somewhat surreal and more than slightly distracting.

During these events it came to light that nearly all the site staff had been out at the site formans birthday party and were in fact all totally drunk. So much so that there was basically noone available to move their own equipment yet alone take emergency measures.

The local council requisitioned the few staff and by 2.30 we were alone and the water was lapping at the sandbags all around the house. I told nanisa to move some clothes and the dog to her mums - by the time i fetched the car the water had risen another 2 inches and i was afraid to leave the car unless the exhaust flooded and i couldnt move it again. Nanisa took the car and left - within another 30 minutes the water had entered the house. By 5pm it was 18 inches deep . by 9 the next morning it was 3' deep.

We has approx 50mm of rain on 24 hours. This is exceptional . But the most rain fell from 10pm-2am. By 10 pm the river was already in flood. This is unusual as the last flood incident took 3 days of heavy sustained rain to flood.

Its likely the river would have flooded anyway. But I am left wondering if the water levels would have reached anywhere near as high sthey would have if the construction crew had not left 3' high concrete bollards totally blocking off the bottom half of the stream bed and creating a large bottleneck at the most vulnerable point.

A small part of me wants to say to them - 'I told you so'. Basically 3 hours before it happened and you blew me off with vague excuses. The entire flood prevention costruction site also ended up under water along with all their jcbs and cranes. Luckily all of which they managed to save the next day.

However we are now looking at a year of hell before we have a home of our own again.

Currently we are waiting for a visit from our loss adjuster, while living at our mother in laws with a stressed out young german shepherd. We cant find accommodation until we are allowed to by the adjuster.

Nanisa had a brief fling with stardom, appearing on local radio as well as the main Scottish News the next day. All in all though im sure she would be ahppier not having had the opportunity.

Work is going to be a nightmare as getting the time off to meet the various adjusters etc cleaners, renovators is going to be a problem.

As I write this the floodwater has receded and ive switched on the upstairs electrical circuit for a short while to check email etc. However im told we expect similar rain over the weekend. - O joy.

pictures of the aftermath to come later.