Waiting for enormous amounts of water to come gushing down the Rhine/Rijn through the Netherlands in the next couple of days. They're estimating record flows.

Belgium is under water. It's been raining for weeks. Aaaand it's St Swithin's Day.

(Bis) Well, it was here, yesterday. Isn't the Belgian equivalent St Godelieve, whose day was 6 July. It's bollocks, I tell you, like all weatherlore.

[Rosie] Wet bollocks innit? 'Ash before oak' and all that. (I didn't notice which was first this year, despite walking out every day past both kinds of trees...)

That's a safe assumption for any 'wise' saying that you can reverse engineer from just a couple of words. I wondered if the word 'soak' was going to show up in the rest of the rhyme before even looking it up. Imagine my amazement when I discovered it did.

(pen, Bismarck) This is quite a big one but European summer floods occur every now and then. Technical explanation here.. (V heavy going - don't bother). The world's a warmer place but whether that had anything to do with it is the subject of great debate. After all, Lynmouth was swept into the sea in 1604, 1769 and 1952 and it'll certainly happen again. The first two dates were in the Little Ice Age, when it was cooler and stormier.

Worth celebrating?

We sold our house in France earlier this year, which broke my heart, because I loved the place. BUT I am relieved not to have to worry any more about it being underwater. In 2016, we came within about 50cm of having the Seine fill our basement rooms floor to ceiling.

To have kept such a house would have been in-seine.

[RTG] Almost.

(CdM) That's a bit too close.
(RTG) No good. Pi=355/113. Even better pi = the fourth root of 2143/22.

It may be 2:42 in the morning where I am, but I need dark chocolate and am going to eat some and I don't care if anybody cares.

(KagShu) Very gratifying to note that I am not the only nutcase here though I must say I prefer brandy at that time of night.