Slightly earlier than usual, occasioned by being warned off trying to get into Wellington after some truly torrential rain. We had 123mm yesterday (more than the average for May altogether) – and 63 of them arrived in the two hours just before lunch. By chance I had the day off, so I wasn’t stranded in town when all the rail network went down, and most of the roads were blocked by landslip or flood. The stream through our back garden was as high as I’d ever seen it, and the Hutt river was lapping at its banks (Marjorie has a video of it here). If anything the river was slightly higher today, as the run-off from the hills continued (by contrast, the stream is still fast, but much lower and clearer). Today has seen so far only a bit more rain while the railway was inspected, and finally reopened at around 4 pm. Not great for commuting, though people stranded yesterday have been able to get home at last. There was an informal Facebook network of spare beds offered, while the council opened one floor of the library overnight for those who were really stuck.
I also wanted to get in early to put down a reminder about puzzles this weekend: the Independent Inquisitor on Saturday 16th, and the Sunday Telegraph Enigmatic Variations on 17th May. Blogs of these will follow as their closing dates pass. And the following weekend sees a Thursday Telegraph Toughie, a Friday Independent daily, a Saturday Times Jumbo and a Sunday Beelzebub.
The puzzle this time is from the period when the BBC Music Magazine called its puzzle Enigma Variations. I had pencilled in my calendar to select a puzzle from my 2008 box, but I checked and saw that I had already been rather profligate with 2008 BBC puzzles, and so jumped smartly five years back in history.
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