How can there be fruit trees flowering at Chatillon when the river is flooding? I find this very, very beautiful, but nevertheless rather embarrassing because a friend who is only here for six months of the year sent me an anxious email last Friday night, 26 April. His house is an old water mill and so quite vulnerable. I cheerfully emailed back telling him not to worry, we'd been having a dry spring and needed the rain (a fortnight without) - adding happily that the water was not even into the bottom of my garden yet. Seven days later it definitely is ... I wonder if he's back now? Too nervous to ring.