Two English men keep calm and carry on drinking as flood waters submerge their pub garden

John Kelly and Steve Holt, who run the Kirkstall Bridge Inn in the English city of Leeds, were a bit worried at first when heavy rains burst the banks of the River Aire on Sunday and began to flood their pub’s beer garden.

“I stood and shouted at the water but it didn’t seem to do much,” Kelly told the BBC. “Then we realised it wasn’t getting any higher and the damage had already been done, so we decided we might as well sit in the beer garden anyway and have a pint.”

With locals looking on from the warmth of the pub’s dining room, Holt and Kelly settled onto a bench with a couple of pints, the water rising to their waists:

“It was remarkably cold,” said Kelly. “The first 15 minutes were a little bit uncomfortable but once we settled down it was surprisingly therapeutic, to sit not just by the river but in the river.”

The pub building itself didn’t suffer any serious damage, the Yorkshire Evening Post reported, but this morning Kelly started a crowdfunding page to try to get some help with the costs of repairing what damage there was.

“After a few daft pictures were posted of us drowning our sorrows in our beloved (yet flooded) beer garden, it did one of them viral things,” he writes. “We thought, perhaps rather shamelessly, to try to harness the publicity to raise funds for its reparation—there’s a beer in it for you!”

He goes on to say that the event marquee, river safety fence, and some inside equipment will need to be replaced. “OK, it is our fault for creating a beer garden by the river, particularly as we can’t get insurance cover. So, if you don’t want to donate, don’t whine at me for asking,” he writes.