Marie Stewart was today celebrating being home and dry at last.

Seven months after floods devastated her semi-detached home for the second time, Marie and her 15-year-old son Ian are overjoyed to be back.

"The house looks wonderful but it has been a big price to pay for it," said Marie, of Springfield Garth, Norton.

"It is absolutely marvellous to be home, but unless it has happened to you, you can't explain the feeling of moving back and feeling safe again at last."

After spending the last seven months in a flat in Langton Road, Marie is enjoying having a garden again.

"It's great just to be able to walk out on the front drive and go into the garden to hang the washing out - I must have done about eight loads since we've been back," she said.

The house had to be completely gutted and redecorated and refurbished from scratch - just as it had to be the previous year when the River Derwent burst its banks.

"After it happened the first time I thought it would never happen again," she said.

"Then when the water started coming in and all that loveliness around us was destroyed, I was shattered. Now I'm back again I think to myself will it happen again?"

She is now pinning her hopes on avoiding the same fate for the third time on the town's new flood defences, work on which could start later this year.

Updated: 11:03 Friday, June 15, 2001