Something that is uniting both town and country at the moment is surely the weather and the drenching that we are all experiencing every time we step outside the door.

Of course there are those unfortunate souls who have been drenched from the feet up whilst still standing in their own kitchen, and the feeling of helplessness as that happens must be a heart wrenching situation to be in.

Having just moved house, one of the things I paid specific attention to was the potential for flooding, and I think I would have a pretty good idea by now whether I had miscalculated the risk of my new home becoming victim to the aquatic elements.

That’s not to say that the surrounding area isn’t suffering. Leaving the village to go shopping one day over the Christmas period resulted in me needing to try three different routes back before I could find one that allowed me to complete the last half mile of my journey.

If that’s the scene in rural Wiltshire, I know there are sufferers in urbanised Swindon as well.

I have decided not to try taking the route under the Bruce Street bridges for the foreseeable future, familiar as I am about what that gets like under a deluge. That work is commencing to alleviate those problems just gives me more reason to want to avoid the traffic chaos that could result, regardless of the weather.

Then again, choosing Wootton Bassett road sometimes isn’t too much better.

My father-in-law is born and bred Somerset and lives the crucial few miles away from the levels to remain unaffected by the misery inflicted on so many there.

While my brother is a born and bred Surreyite and his town of Walton on Thames is another in the news at the moment for the same reason, although his house at this stage does not appear to be at risk either.

It seems strange to me that I should have two members of the family, who will have only shared the same room once while at my wedding and who are so different in so many ways, monitoring the same news story every day.

Usually one would be concerned about the badger cull, while they other would be checking the traffic on the M25.

I have thoughts for two separate threads of my family, and the very different worlds in which they live, while their counties experience exactly the same problem.

That situation almost seems a microcosm of the nature of this column. Urban and rural areas which both deserve my consideration, even if neither are in Wiltshire.

I have noticed that another Surrey town, Staines, seems to have changed its name to Staines on Thames these days and I’m pretty sure I’d never heard mention of flooding there until they did.

I wonder whether anyone there is now regretting getting so pally with the river as to actually invite it into the town.