It had been a very dark morning with very heavy rain. In the afternoon it started to become brighter, and the rain fell lighter. But that rain had to go somewhere and the rivers couldn't take it away fast enough.

A month’s rainfall fell in just 48 hours on to saturated ground in the Avon Valley. It was all beyond anyone’s experience.

I left work at 5pm. After spending about 2 hours driving what normally takes 20 minutes to the motorway, and hearing it was blocked by a flood, I gave up trying to drive North to my family. Instead I attempted to get home along A roads. The mobile phone was extremely useful. Local radio was too.

No-one imagined how bad it was going to get. Everyone just wanted to get home. I can't remember how many times I drove through 18" (50cm) of water, wondering if this time my car would 'conk' like all the other hundreds I had driven past stranded in the dips in the road. My car is such a small, light one, and I saw plenty of much larger cars stuck at the roadside.

The problem was that, later Thursday evening, all roads near home were cut off with 6 feet (2m) of water. Everyone was driving around the countryside trying to get back, but couldn't. You would see people walking along the side of the roads and ask if it was possible to get through along that road. One woman said her car had just floated away! Someone else said a lorry was submerged blocking the road, apart from the water! Everyone was quite cheerful though.

Freezing cold at 3am, I awoke. I thought, "Something's wrong - perhaps I've got hypothermia?", but checking my thermometer found it was actually 5 deg C! It was no wonder I felt cold. I thought about turning the engine on, but I knew I only had 1/4 tank of petrol left which I really wanted to keep. I sleepily remembered my spare clothes, and put 2 more jumpers on and fell back to sleep again.

I awoke at 7am - it had stopped raining, and turned on the radio. They seemed to suggest the floods had subsided a bit, but more rain was forecast and it was snowing heavily on the M6 motorway, which was down to one lane in places! I could not believe the snow as well. Anyway, I decided to make a quick start before the people in the emergency shelters awoke and clogged up the roads. I ate my half hot cross bun, drank my last drops of water and drove from the village to the East, away from the M6 and up the M1 instead.

I stopped at 8.30am, and had a brilliant full English breakfast at a motorway services. Just in case, I bought some water and sandwiches and chocolate bars. Crossing the country it did snow, but no more floods!!!

I found out later, more than 300 homes in the town were engulfed by the rising waters of the local river and hundreds more were swamped right through both river valleys.

It was the worst flood in 150 years. I still don't like driving along country lanes in the rain - it was such a claustrophobic experience finding that ALL roads home were blocked and it was just impossible to get there by any route.