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The rain went on, and I began to think that this was what we had been preparing for - and how I congratulated myself, each time I unblocked a gutter or a drain, on our resilience. I put on my wellingtons and Grandy's old sou'wester and went out to check the garden, to pick the last of the autumn raspberries, to pull the leaves of the perpetual spinach. I let the chickens out to scratch in the wet earth and then called them back into the scullery, and I thought how fine it was to be so well prepared. I didn't think about the supermarket vans, which still came monthly. I didn't think about the things we used but couldn't make: the sugar, the milk, the bottles of olive oil. I didn't think about the doctors and the hospitals that would be there if we wanted them. I didn't think about all the mechanical things, the fridge and the generator, the lights with their bulbs, the taps that turned. I didn't think about that vest net which, invisible, imperceptible, held us up.
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