Thirty-eight.

Years ago I was told of a phenomenon which I thought was literally nonsensical: that water can flow up hill. Yesterday the rain fell so fast and so heavily that this was definitely revealed to me to be true. Under force water always finds the route of least resistance following on from the laws of gravity I suppose. With enough force it could surely pour out in a gush. After all is not a gesser one such forces combined with thermal dynamics???

I've just left the first household in France where bread, cheese, butter, meat and wine were nowhere to be seen. Lillian and her mute husband were pleasant enough, but she whittered like my mother's sister Iris: who was a God fearing Christian and a hard line racist (mum was always an apologist for her too saying "she's harmless really" or "doesn't know what she's saying" while she attacked how fat or thin or badly dressed or overdressed or over intense I was or how the coloureds have ruined Rotherham ... Did anyone visit Rotherham in the 1970s or early 1980s to see how it ranked as one of the top "shite" towns in all of Bonnie Britain?

True, I've no idea if Lillian was a bigot too, but she had two lovely happy cats, a quiet housebound husband and did my washing for me. However now I'm off up to 800 metres again and I shot the bread, the cheese and the wine on top of a wet bag and the 1.5 litres of water she forced on me. She drew me a tampon, which was a novelty, and I couldn't help mentioning in her guest book that she is a doppelganger for my deceased, pain in the neck, of an Auntie Iris.