We were warned that rain was coming – and so it did, barrelling down all night, falling through the darkness on to ground that was already saturated. By the time it was light, the rivers through Bridport had risen and spread across the floodplain, splicing into a broad, brown rope of water twisting to the harbour at West Bay.
Contemptuous of its banks, the River Brit was running noisily across meadows, forming new lakes where herring gulls sat floating on its muddy surge. Water went straight through the allotments, sending plastic pots bobbing like buoys against the boundary fence.
