24 NOVEMBER 2007, Page 43

Adjustment

So much for the ineffectual sandbags: we were put in touch with the loss adjuster, who came when the 'black water' had retired. They would indeed replace the white goods (for which we'd better find the lost receipts) but, with a droll glance at the furniture, he let us know that didn't mean what was wrecked already might be redeemed nor that the house would be caulked and fitted out with gopher wood against a future flood.

He must have seen a rainbow smudge of expectation in our eyes. His soles scuffed the buckled floor boards — the alluvia of silvered dust, clay, gravel, seeds and spores still promising the new, the better life.

Jamie McKendrick