Does anyone else feel housebound by all this rain and flooding? It scares the bejesus out of me to be honest and wish it would all stop!

I’m so lucky that last year I moved into a lovely, detached bungalow at the top of an enormous hill! I can see the South Downs from my bedroom windows and am also lucky that the hill I live at the top of is also made, mostly, of chalk. This makes its flood defences first class so I can sit up here smiling smugly to myself while the horror of the flooding plays out on the news in front of me.

It’s when I venture out that things start to terrify me. The other day I needed to drive to Chichester for a meeting and was getting more anxious as the morning went on. I’d seen pictures of people stranded in their cars in the middle of raging torrents of water that used to be country lanes or car parks and was nervous about what I was going to find when I ventured out of my chalky, hilly comfort zone. I called the office in a panic and was reassured that the country lanes near Birdham were all fine except for the odd, large puddle. Phew, I had visions of having to be rescued from my car. It’s not quite so easy to escape through a torrent of rushing water when you need two sticks to hold yourself upright!

Another hazard with having to use sticks is how difficult this becomes on wet, slippery ground. I managed to get there without incident (except closing my eyes and hoping for the best a few times driving through said, large puddles). When I got out of my car I had to walk up a long, winding, crazy-paved path to the front door. I put one stick down for balance and whoosh, out it went from underneath me! Luckily I managed to stay upright but walked at such a slow pace up the path that my colleague, who’d seen me coming and opened the door to greet me, closed it again and came back 10 minutes later so as not to let the heat out! I then sat through the meeting, worrying about 80mph winds and torrential rain, promised for the return journey.

In actual fact, it didn’t even rain on the way home and I even contemplated putting on my sun glasses but didn’t want to tempt fate so squinted happily home!

Do any other MSers worry about the weather? I don’t want to begin to think about snow as that is an MSers nightmare! Wind is no fun when balance is an issue and even sunshine makes those of us with heat intolerance groan and run (or hobble) for the shade! What sort of weather is worse? I’d love to hear peoples comments and funny stories!