Flood alert weekend

Yesterday, it had rained heavily at night and continued for part of the day as well. Dangerous weather warnings were issued by the Met Office. It was just as well I had a Sunday sermon to finish. During a break in the weather, I walked to Blackweir Bridge and took photos of the Taff, turned into a raging torrent with the water level on the west side so high it was lapping at the edge of the footpath. I'd never seen it so high before. 

On BBC Four in the evening a second series of crime drama 'Hidden', set in North Wales occupied the prime time crime at nine slot. The cops are the same as last time, but the baddies are a group of three disturbed teenagers up to sinister no good things. Very promising.

This morning, I was back in St Samson's again at nine, preaching on the 'Creation Sunday' theme in the Revised Common Lectionary. I was caught out, however. The parish uses the Roman Lectionary scheme of Sundays in 'Ordinary Time' with a totally different set of readings. I had to hunt through a couple of Lectionary books with scriptural indices to find the readings I was expecting and ask for these to be read instead. My request was  received graciously, and we started on time.

After the service I returned home, and then walked down to Pontcanna Fields to take a look at the state of the river after a second night of heavy rain. I heard on the news that the Taff had burst its banks and caused flooding up at Pontypridd, Nantgarw and Llandaff North, so I was interested to see what impact this exceptional volume of water passing underneath Blackweir Bridge would have.

Not only was the field between the footpath and the dyke flooded, but also half of the field a couple of feet above it. This was due to water breaking through a higher up on the west bank and pouring into the edge of the north side field where the dyke is not so pronounced and the ground slightly more level, so the north side flooded at the higher level and poured over the footpath into the south side. It was quite spectacular to see. The re-engineering of the river bank to improve flood defences was undertaken after Cardiff was flooded back in 1979. Apparently, today the Taff rose 80cm higher than it did on that occasion, so the work done was really put to the test, perhaps like never before.

There was a steady flow of people coming to see and take photos like me. The sensible ones had green wellies on, a few cycled through, and some like me risked the shallows and either turned back or got their feet wet. That's what happened to me. But I got some interesting photos, both yesterday and today. You can see them here.

Martin and Chris invited me over to lunch. One of their guests was a doctor friend from Martin's days as Vicar of Pontyclun, whose brother is one of the GPs in our surgery. The other was the recently retired Bishop of Monmouth Richard Pain, whom I have known for thirty years, through our shared association with Ty Mawr Convent. Neither of us can remember when we last met. I wasn't around when he was consecrated Bishop. It was a lovely afternoon of conversation, eating and drinking fine wines, just catching up and reflecting on ministerial life and the present parlous state of the Church in Wales. It was a respite from solitude which I much appreciated.