The best news around our plight is that we were comprehensively insured and with an insurance company that were excellent in every way with the way they handled our claim. For reasons I'll explain we, and most of our neighbours, had to move out for six months; but they paid for the move, for six months temporary accommodation and for all the work that was needed on the house.

My wife very sensibly called the insurance company out while there was still water in the house. They explained that we'd have to move out for six months and recommended we find somewhere as soon as possible as there would be lots of other locals in the same position. It was good advice and we acted on it finding a flat in Eton, accessible to the station for Sandra's commute.

The reason for having to move out, for seven rather than six months as it turns out, is that while the water was only ever six inches deep in the house it works its way up through the plaster by capillary action and, to avoid damp, the insurance companies insist on stripping all the plaster to a height of six metres to aid drying out. Carpets obviously have to go and they rip out all of the flooring too.

We'd lived quite 'comfortably' above the flood, as I've explained but the ripping out and drying process was something else. It was first extremely dusty and subsequently and for several weeks very noisy as every room was full of huge extractor fans. Work on putting the house back together could not start until a drying certificate had been issued.

We spent ages thinking about resilient flooring to put in but the builders, who worked for the insurance company and had done many of these jobs, said whatever we put down, if we flooded again, it would all have to be ripped out or we wouldn't get a drying certificate and the insurance company wouldn't sign the work off.

The restoration work was in many ways worse than the flood had been and, in its way, more disruptive. But we decided to make the most of it. If we were having the ground floor ripped out we'd pay a bit over what we'd get from the insurance and get it put back the way we wanted it. So some walls came down that didn't strictly need to and we ended up with a new utility room and a splendid office; including some boat shaped shelves that are our little visual joke. The whole thing was a pain but at the end we had a better living space with good solid doors front and back designed to keep water out.

The best news from an insurance point of view was that our premium barely went up. It was so small a rise we had to phone them to check they knew we had flooded. The premium only went up £20. Their attitude when we queried it was, "It probably won't happen again." That was the good news. The problem unfortunately is if we wanted to sell new buyers  wouldn't find getting insurance so easy. Thankfully government are introducing a scheme to address this.

Some of our neighbours were less lucky. One house didn't have insurance. Fortunately it hadn't been converted so it was only the garage that flooded. They didn't rip out any plaster and let it dry out in its own time while they stayed in the property. We wondered at times if that wasn't a better option.

Another set of neighbours struggled with their insurers who claimed the policy wasn't valid because they were too near the river. I'm not sure how they worked that out as they were exactly the same distance away as when they took the policy out! The policy paid out in the end but by the time work started on their house we were already back in.