I didn't sleep well, and kept being disturbed by a dry mouth, and probably soreness from snoring. When I woke up at first light, blood was leaking slowly from my left nostril. It wasn't from a lesion cauterised yesterday but another near the tip of my nose, where I've had problems before. It didn't get any worse but sleeping after this disruption was sporadic. When I got up after eight I felt worse than I did yesterday, a step backwards in recovery. It was probably a result of not drinking enough water yesterday evening, so I made myself drink a glass regularly during the day, whether or not I felt thirsty. I didn't feel well enough to drive to St German's for the Mass of All Saints at lunchtime, but had to bow to the inevitable.
Terrible news of flooding in Valencia preoccupied me. The death toll is already 158 and rising, I read Spanish news sites for updates. It's a city I love, having visited with my sister in 2008, and then again in 2012 while on locum duty in Costa Azahar. It seems that the deviation of the river course to the west and south of the city after the floods of 1957 protected the ancient city centre and surrounding areas, but unprecedented colossal rainfall in the sierras above to the west in recent days has unleashed a torrent of water and mud causing the rio Turia to burst its banks, destroying bridges, roads, houses, as the water sped down on to the plain. The scale of this caught everyone by surprise. It wasn't raining when the river started rising rapidly, and for some victims, too rapidly to escape from. More rain is now hitting the entire eastern coast of Spain, and areas of flooding are extending. As forewarned by climate scientists, change in the world's weather patterns is speeding up, with more violent and unpredictable impacts.
The coastal plain to the south of Valencia is where its famous paella rice is grown in the wetlands. Inland there's a huge horticultural area, market gardens and orchards covered by a network of irrigation channels, but if an infrastructure that distributes water gets overwhelmed by flooding it cannot drain away fast enough to avoid dangerous depths of water building up rapidly. People get caught at home and at work. Cars go out of control on fast flooding roads and crash. The flood death toll rose to over 200 while I was reading news reports. It made me think. If Cardiff had a year's worth of rain in half a day as happened here how would the river Taff's current flood defences fare, especially at high tide in the Channel. Already the world is seeing unthinkable weather occurrences. Planet earth is responding to our abuse of it.
Clare cooked mackerel and roast veg for lunch. I slept for an hour and a half afterwards. Only then did I start to feel ready for some fresh air. It was coming up to four when I went out, so I limited myself to a walk half my usual distance with the aim of returning by sunset. When it's overcast like today, darkness seems to descend even more rapidly.
After supper I wrote some more of my Grandfather's story. In the course of looking through some photos I came across a page from the 1911 census on the Kimber family household in Waun Lwyd, Ebbw Vale, and noticed something I'd not taken in before. My grandfather's profession was recorded as 'Rope Splicer, inspector and cycle trader' (presumably his other job after working down the pit). Such a coincidence that I should see this while writing about his time in a Philadelphia steel works. My father was a Rope Splicer too - like father like son. The same I think for Clare's father, following his father into marine engineering at Chatham dockyard. The mystery is how Grandpa Jack became a rope splicer? Did he learn when he was working in Ebbw Vale steel works, or when he worked in a Philly steel works?
I stopped writing at nine to watch the penultimate episode of 'Chateau Murders'. There are enough strands to this story line to make it difficult to follow. Will I understand any better after the finale I wonder.
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