Time Past

We are now resident in Keswick. The last time Noi and I stayed here was some twenty years ago. It hasn't changed much since then, although there's some sense of hard times having been navigated. This was even more apparent in Cockermouth, which we visited yesterday afternoon. There's a plaque on one of the buildings there on the main street in the town centre, showing the height of the floodwater which inundated the town in 2009. It's astonishingly high, well over six feet. There's much to applaud in the recovery made since that time, though I'm guessing that scars remain. Can't imagine that the house owners in the area can get their properties properly insured.

I remember being in Cumbria in December 2009, the last time I saw Tony alive. The area had already experienced floods and at one point we had lunch next to a river in full spate, though I can't quite recall which town that was. Somewhere nearer the coast. His presence seems particularly vivid to me in this part of the world, a place he loved.