After the deluge

By the time I went out shopping this morning, the Wear was back within its banks, and the sequence of weirs in the river were visible. The riverside footpath was passable, though I had to step over a tree trunk to walk away from the shops. A couple of lads were washing and sweeping the mud off the terrace outside In Shanghai, and there were cars parked all along Framwelgate Waterside, as if it hadn't been under water yesterday. There's a fine nest of debris caught on the weir, with a lifebelt in among it, just in case, and a few minutes after I took this photograph the first of the cormorants had returned, perching cautiously on the highest protruding branch.

D. drove down from Lindisfarne without mishap.

So it's all back to normal. But the sky is an ominous grey - and what will happen when yesterday's rains wash down from Weardale?