This goes back 3 months before the flood. I decided to stop drinking for health reasons and saving some money, so I started by drying out. I wasn’t going to drink anymore. I kept this up for 3 months until one night I thought, ‘Well I’ve gone for 3 months, I’ve proved to myself I can do it’, so I went out for a drink. I bumped into a few friends of mine, we went to Zest, we had a few drinks, but after you haven’t had a drink for 3 months, that was a lot of drink. I waded home after the night out, went to bed -I actually slept on the couch that night- and had the wildest dream. I dreamt there were 50 pence pieces shimmering by the window. I went back to sleep again, woke up, and I looked at the ceiling and all of a sudden I thought I must have had a lot to drink.  I had a hell of a headache, and the ceiling seemed to be moving. Then I thought it’s not the ceiling, it’s me. No it’s not me, it’s the couch- the couch was actually moving about, bobbing. ‘What the hell?’- I thought- I must be really drunk. I got out and I just fell into sewerage. I fell off the couch straight into the sewerage- I got a mouthful. And the whole flat was floating. All my bookshelves- these bookshelves I’d built out of chipboard- had just dissolved, the whole lot had just gone in like that. The whole flat was just full of flotsam and jetsam. Everything I owned floating and bobbing around along with lots of - well sewerage- I was covered down the front with sewerage.
I couldn’t work out what had happened. I had such a hangover and I was still feeling so drowsy- I hadn’t drank for 3 months- I didn’t know what had happened. I just went into a panic. I ran around- I ran into one room and I banged my leg on something, I didn’t know what the hell it was and everything was just floating in the room. I remember looking at my VCR player- I’ve got a VCR player, DVD player and that- they were just floating about with the rest of it.
I would have made the connection had I not had a drink the night before. I just thought it was me. I thought it was the effects of the alcohol from the night before. And the funny thing is - I walked out into the street and I remember I was still thinking this was a dream, and I looked down and there was a Koi carp swimming past me legs- which had obviously got out of somebody’s pond. And I was thinking- god I did have a lot to drink last night! There’s Koi carp floating everywhere! And
then it just sort of clicked.
The first consequence of swallowing lots of sewerage was a very bad stomach bug- very ill for quite some time. Then there was the terrible thought went past my head- I was halfway through changing my insurance policy at that point as well- I had yet to renew it. ‘I’ve lost everything’ you know, ‘I’m finished’. I lost a lot of stuff that couldn’t be replaced- I mean people think books are very easy to replace but they’re old books from my university course and I’d lost my entire collection of stuff. Even to this day- you can see if you go to my house and look at my collection of books, it suddenly stops round about L - cos that’s the bit where the water got to. The water went down within a couple of hours but I’m still sorting it out now really. There were lots of things, things I’d had for years were just absolutely ruined. I just had to replace everything. I didn’t get any insurance but I did apply to a couple of funds- I got a few hundred quid. I’ve still not sorted it all out- I’m still trying to replace things. I was devastated- absolute devastation. And that’s my flood story. I woke up after being dry for 3 months and found myself literally in the wet.

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