Of English ditches

There is nothing half-hearted about those ditches which accompany English country roads. They know they are intended to be ditches, not mere furrows, and they behave as  such. The on that sheltered Lord Belpher was so deep that only his head  and neck protruded above the level of the road, and so dirty that a bare twenty yards of travel was sufficient to coat him with mud. Rain, once fallen, is reluctant to leave the English ditch. It nestles inside it for weeks, forming a rich, oatmeal-like substance which has to be stirred to be believed. Percy stirred it. He churned it. He ploughed and sloshed through it. The mud stuck to him like a brother.

(from A Damsel In Distress, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)