Back in Iowa for a few weeks and at first the promised heatwave failed to materialise. In fact, when I arrived it was positively... nippy. The first few days were very up and down temperature-wise, ranging from early 60s to late 80s - as all-over-the-place as British weather but without the sunny respites between the rain.

And at the end of last week, the rain did indeed fall... with massive night-long thunderstorms and a huge surge in the water-table. The Big Sioux River floods at 15ft... by today (Monday) it was cresting at 23ft or  more. Two of the major roads into town are closed, several farms are under water and I can now just about see the river from the house (never a good sign unless you *usually* have a water-front property). Jilly's house has avoided direct  flooding, but it would probably have only taken another four or five feet to push our way.

Walking out to the bridge out of town, it's like a scene from a post-apocalyptic movie... with people leaving cars and walking up the centre of the road  the edge of the water. Birds circle overhead and - though you'd never think about it until you see it - the tarmac has loads of  dead worms who tried to make it to higher ground. I know. Bizarre! 

Hopefully the rest of the coming week will be dry and sunny, at least that's the forecast.  The water has curtailed some of our plans, but we should be able to get further afield by mid-week or so with a little ffort and re-navigation.  Flooding happens here, but even the locals are saying this is the biggest in many years...

Impact work is getting done, a significant portion of due monies for design work has arrived  and my only real complaints are a range of bug bites, a few cat scratches and a passing argument with a low ceiling. Otherwise, it's good to be back in the land of the free and the home of the free, corn,  fish. Now, where's my Ark manual?