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River Ouse

Last week the river Ouse looked very full. Yesterday I thought, wow, it’s even fuller. This morning it is double WOW!

Here’s a photo of the river, taken from the bike path, yesterday afternoon.

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Here’s a photo taken from the same spot this morning.

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And here in portrait mode so you can see the bike path.

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The river bike path:

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I asked a few locals this morning whether this is normal as nobody seemed terribly bothered by it. Yes, it is very normal and the water quite often goes up as high as this wall on the right in this next shot:

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Rachel M

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Comments

19 responses to “River Ouse”

  1. Bronwyn Avatar
    Bronwyn

    York’s a flood plain so Wikipedia tells me. That’s why the river’s tide varies so much. (I think??)

    Reply
    1. Rachel Avatar
      Rachel

      Yes, it floods here quite regularly I am told. Someone told me they have a brother who lives in a house that it regularly flooded. He is a carpenter and so he has built a kitchen that he can simply flatten and shift upstairs whenever the flood waters rise. Amazing! They don’t want to move somewhere else.

      Reply
      1. Bronwyn Avatar
        Bronwyn

        You’d have to REALLY love being somewhere to put up with regular flooding wouldn’t you?

      2. Rachel Avatar
        Rachel

        Yes, I would think so. There must be an awful mess to clean up each time.

      3. Victor Venema Avatar
        Victor Venema

        I was once in a hotel in a small village along the (Middle-)Rhine. They had only movable furniture in the ground floor, a separate electrical system and the power comes into the houses via the roof, and all the walls and floors had glazed tiling, which you can easily clean afterwards.

        That is adaptation!

      4. Rachel Avatar
        Rachel

        It is indeed, Victor. I wonder how often they have to deal with flood waters? If it was once every 10 years then I probably wouldn’t mind too much. If it was every year though I think it would get tiresome.

        Although, if given the choice, I think I would prefer to live on a flood plain than on a tectonic plate boundary.

  2. Bronwyn Avatar
    Bronwyn

    Pretty though.

    Reply
    1. Rachel Avatar
      Rachel

      It’s beautiful.

      Reply
  3. Rachel Avatar
    Rachel

    I find it really funny that all the squirrels here are running around with nuts in their mouths. It’s a cliche but it’s so true.

    Reply
    1. Bronwyn Avatar
      Bronwyn

      How cute. I love squirrels. I bet if they were in Australia, I’d have squirrel boxes everywhere.

      Reply
  4. mixedupmeme Avatar
    mixedupmeme

    What a difference a day makes. Twenty-four little hours.
    Good time to be a duck …. the one I saw in the first picture.

    Reply
    1. Rachel Avatar
      Rachel

      I think if I was going to die and come back as a different animal, it would be a duck because they get to swim, fly and walk on land. How lucky are they?

      Locals tell me the water will have gone back down by tomorrow. Whenever there’s a fair amount of rain upstream from here, the Ouse floods the next day.

      Reply
  5. Eve Spence Avatar
    Eve Spence

    Lucky you weren’t there last year, Rachel, remember this, http://news.sky.com/story/990015/more-misery-for-flood-victims-as-rivers-peak.
    We have possums here in Australia which also look cute until they start raiding one’s larder each night and running roughshod through the house. They’re a protected species here, you know, not like in New Zealand.
    I couldn’t see the duck in the first photo?

    Reply
  6. northernbike.com Avatar
    northernbike.com

    I live near one of the dales rivers that drains into the Ouse and when it is in full spate after a storm up in the fells I often think about how all that water has still to squeeze through the centre of York before it reaches the Humber estuary and the sea as so many times have I been down there when the city’s riverside submerged.

    Reply
    1. Eve Spence Avatar
      Eve Spence

      A little local knowledge of geography goes a lo..ong way. Most visitors from the antipodes would have no idea that the lovely Ouse could be so treacherous. I posted the above Sky film footage from last year’s floods not to revisit the misery but thinking Rachel, now familiar with most of the buildings shown in the film, would find it interesting. The stoic, adaptable riverains of York can’t even get flood insurance.

      Reply
    2. Rachel Avatar
      Rachel

      Next time you see a torrent of water gushing by your house, please come and let me know 😉

      Reply
      1. Eve Spence Avatar
        Eve Spence

        That Ouse is such a quintessentially English river. Reminds me of the one in Millais’ painting of Ophelia although that was of another English river. Have a look.

  7. Sherri Avatar
    Sherri

    I enjoyed seeing these pics Rachel, a beautiful part of the world up there in York!
    It is amazing how quickly rivers can flood. Here in the West Country we have had nothing but a diluge of rain all week long and apparantley we are in for a bad storm over the weekend. Somerset is particularly bad for flooding when this happens.
    There is a place we like to go for a walk called Langport which is similar to this with a walk/bike path right alongside the river. Last year we went for a lovely walk and then by the next day it was completely submerged after a bad storm caused the river to burst its banks. Seems to be happening more frequently here in the UK.
    We need to button down the hatches this weekend, so keep dry 🙂

    Reply
    1. Rachel Avatar
      Rachel

      Yes, it has been very rainy all week except for yesterday which was unusually warm and very sunny. The rain is back again today but the river has gone back down so I had a water-free bike path which was a bit easier to navigate.

      I hope you have a good weekend and manage to stay dry! Brits are pretty good at keeping dry I think.

      Reply

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