What a difference a day makes. Nearer to thirty-six hours to be exact.

Hilary and I had scooted off to Cheshire on Saturday evening – staying at the Granage Hall Hotel, which is a large conference complex built onto the back and sides of a beautiful Victorian mansion situated just outside Knutsford – so that we could attend the last day of the Tatton Hall RHS Flower Show on Sunday. It was a superb sunny day too, even though the ground was still rather muddy from Saturday’s rain.

We left around 3.30, which was great timing because around 3.45 the heavens opened, quickly turning the car parks (waterlogged open fields) into even muddier car traps, especially if your own vehicle happens to be a very low to the ground MG sports car.

Once home, around 6.30, we decided to take a walk down to the theatre and river to see how far Saturday’s floods had retreated.

Quite a bit was the answer, with the remaining flood-water still half way across the Bancroft Gardens, which is on the theatre side, and wholly covering the park land on the other side, making Stratford look more like a lake side town.

It’s still pretty much the same today (Monday), although the Swan Theatre is opening for business tonight, with further performances of MacBeth, which is a fabulous show and one I shall be reviewing here in a day or two.

The real problems are now much further down river, especially in Evesham and Tewksbury, where the rivers Avon and Severn meet.

After our walk we ended-up in the Dirty Duck pub last night, where the wine and food tasted as good as ever.

My only wish now is that the British media gets a grip of itself and cools down the national disaster hype they’re peddling at the moment, and instead remind everyone of the truly devastating floods that hit New Orleans a couple of years ago, and continually hit Bangladesh.