And a Merry Christmas to both of my readers...

Flooded footpath beside the Itchen Navigation

There's a break in the clouds at the moment, allowing a shaft of sunlight to fall across my keyboard, but the weather forecast suggests that this will be a short-lived phenomenon and the rain will start to fall again very soon.
We've just returned from a pre-Christmas visit to friends and family in Hampshire and West Sussex, which had been slightly less water-logged than North Staffordshire until the night we arrived, when prolonged and heavy rain onto already saturated ground caused widespread flooding and even a few evacuations where flood defences threatened to collapse. 

We escaped largely unscathed, except that a planned walk with friends along the Itchen Navigation north of Southampton came to a premature and soggy conclusion in both directions when firstly, we found the water meadows to the east of Southampton Airport completely inundated, and then the path under water at Allbrook.

Soggy jogger

However, since that was at the very moment that the Mayan Apocalypse was supposed to be in full force, arguably we got off quite lightly under the circumstances!

And it appears to be staying damp for the rest of the week, though at least this suggests that the doom-laden predictions of the Daily Express a few weeks ago that we would by now all be shivering under blankets of snow and temperatures of minus twenty are a pile of pants.  Like almost everything else that scurrilous right-wing rag prints, I'm forced to add.

Anyway, if you've enjoyed reading this blog during the year, thank you for your interest and feedback, and watch out for more bad puns, sarcasm and socialism in 2013.  If not sooner, as it doesn't look like great weather for walking, boating or anything else to tempt me too far from the keyboard.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!