RAIN, RAIN, RAIN

One knows that there have been periods before when rainfall has been exceptionally high and continuous. So this is no different from any of them, is it?

All I can say is that there are times when it feels like it. The garden furniture lies damply on the patio. Shops are full of 30% reductions in the price of barbecues, chimenea, space heaters, swim-wear, hammocks.... Tell me that our weather has taken a sudden lurch into a wet climate and I will believe you.

Noah, of course, had faith that he would survive, but then he had only forty days of atmospheric depressions to bear. Did he know how long at the outset? And, anyway, how did all those animals survive once they were released from the ark - the ground must have been quite incapable of producing crops to feed them. As much of our farmland now is.

Feeling dismal at the start of another day of assorted rain and high winds is one thing: being told, as many have been, that there is no hope of their flooded homes being habitable for another two years is quite a different prospect. And the price of foods will rocket.

History books will record 2007 as one of the wettest this country has ever known. Who can guess what it will have to say about the aftermath?

The solution? To lose oneself in trivial occupations. Watching television is an alternative too banal to be contemplated - I think I'll try The Tmes crossword puzzle.