“I’m thinking of building an ark,” said Sarah Cowen, an artist and cafe owner. “It’s been horrendous. We’ve never known anything like it. The mud, the silt, the endless rain.” Cowen is one of a hardy, if soggy, bunch who live or work in and around the parish of Cardinham, on the edge of Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, which has endured 41 consecutive days of rain – and counting.
“This is definitely global warming. You get either baking sun or continuous rain,” Cowen said. The locals don’t have to look at the weather forecast here at the moment. “You know it’s going to be rain,” Cowen said.
The Met Office revealed this week that Cardinham was one of three places in the UK that had had 40 days of rain in a row. The other two are North Wyke, a little farther east in Devon, and Astwood Bank in Worcestershire.
Cardinham beats the other two damp spots in terms of the volume of rain – 366mm, and Cornwall has had its wettest January on record. The Guardian headed there on day 41 and encountered drizzle, modest showers and torrential downpours.
Loveday Sutton, a leading light of the Cardinham garden club, said people were becoming a little despondent. “We don’t get cold, bright days any more. It’s relentless rain. People can’t get out to do their gardens. Mine is sodden, that’s the only word for it.”
One of the roads into the village of Cardinham was closed. The volume of water pouring through had caused the road surface to buckle and break.
Nick Hoskin, a farmer, said he was having to keep his cows – south Devon crosses – in a barn or in his farmyard. “I think even they realise it’s better to be in there at the moment rather than out on the fields.” He has been farming for 40 years. “This is the worst weather we’ve had,” he said.
There is much discussion here at the moment about the best coat to wear. Jenny Cockerill, who works in a forest school, sported a trendy Patagonia waterproof while her colleague Claire Edwards had a sturdier-looking unbranded number from a farming supplies shop. “It’s dry but doesn’t breathe,” Edwards said. “I do get a bit warm going up hill.”
At the Forestry Commission’s Cardinham Woods, Adam Harvey and Sandy Gourley, two firefighters, were muddy but cheerful having completed the “Beast of Bodmin” mountain bike trail, named after the big cat said to roam these parts.
They were taking a much-deserved day off, having spent many hours this year dealing with the aftermath of storms and heavy rains. “It’s good to get out no matter the weather,” Gourley said. “It helps your mental health, though one dry day would be nice.”
Sam Lebbern, a recreation manager at the woods, said they were constantly checking the forecasts. “But you have to get on with it – keep smiling. There’s a sense of camaraderie in the face of adversity and Cornish people are resilient.”
Marion Robertson, who was walking her black labrador, Indie, and keeping the rain at bay with a multicoloured umbrella, said she was lucky she lived on top of a hill. “You feel very sorry for all those people who have been flooded. The rain is tedious, but you have to make the best of it.”
The Met Office weather station that has recorded more than 40 days of precipitation is at Bodmin airfield. Its manager Ian Bryant (everyone knows him by his old Royal Navy nickname Arfur) took the Guardian into the control tower to look at the current readings from the station. A light wind was coming in from the south-east, visibility was only 500 metres and the cloud base was at 60 metres. And, clearly, it was raining.
Bryant said he didn’t believe in global warming, and climate change was a “hobgoblin” being used to scare people. “This is just a wet winter. We’ve had wet winters before,” he said.
These 41 days of rain are not good for business. Only about 20 small planes have been able to fly out of Bodmin since the new year. At busy times there can be 50 a day.
There is a chance the run of rain will come to an end on Saturday when the Met Office is (currently) predicting bright, warm sunshine. But more rain is expected on Sunday, so if there is a respite, it will be brief.
At the AeroDine cafe in the airfield clubhouse, Ed Salatas was keeping his fingers crossed. He began running the cafe in September and had two good months serving excellent coffee and hearty meals to pilots and other passersby.
“Then came snow, now the rain,” he said. Salatas has made the best of the quiet times by refurbishing the cafe. “Now we just need a break so the customers will come back.”
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: theguardian.com
