Dry, Sunny Essex

When I came here eleven years ago, I was delighted to discover Essex was the driest county in England! Fantastic! I was also under the impression it was one of the flattest. Combining this 'little Holland' with Global Warming I thought I was on to a good thing here. How wrong I was!

Within two years I received anxious phone calls from relatives worried about the money I had borrowed, asking if I had drowned in the floods. Naturally they were delighted, at least the piggy banks were, that flooding only happened at the bottom of the hills, hills which I thought did not exist! Flooding did take place, and has done since several times. A combination of heavy rain and swollen rivers makes for uncomfortable living. This begs the question, why buy a house at the bottom of a hill next to a stream? And the houses bought are not the cheap ones either. What drives folk to seek houses there? Could it be that is where 'the right people' live? You know, the middle class folks, 'our kind' as it were. Certainly a more intelligent, less class conscious type might move to a better place, but I digress.

The hills. Yes, there are hills, and steep ones at that. I did not notice them at first, but once I got on the bike and found myself struggling up slopes I had not noticed before, then I noticed them. Once I began delivering mail by bike, I noticed them even more!
Struggling up a hill with a twenty five kilo bag of mail aint no fun son I can tell you! Naturally, in such a job as that, there is always one who has to claim he cycles up daily with no problem. We all tend to agree with folk like that. The cycling is no problem, it's the lies that irritate! Why is there always a man who has to boast of his prowess when all and sundry know he is lying? Not only that, he knows we know, but he goes on pretending he is fooling folks, and even impressing them. The word 'tosser' is appropriate here.

Essex, county of hills and rain after all. But on the other hand, there is indeed more dry days than wet, more chance of a hosepipe ban than a flood. More chance of my lottery win arriving than daft middle class types buying houses they actually want than just because they are with the 'right kind of people.' Could be worse mind, I could be in some city centre. At least I can always see the sky here, even if it is overcast and light gray at the moment.