Plip, plop

Returning to bed after an early morning "visit" I was startled to hear a noise in the dark.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap-tap.

I figured it out pretty quickly. The roof is leaking again. I'd found a wet patch on the bedroom floor on Tuesday morning but no signs of drips or leaks. Now there was a definite drip. The only question was - would I be able to get back to sleep with all that racket going on?

I almost managed it after about half an hour, but as I was drifting off Nikki gave me a sharp nudge.
"What's that noise? Is it a leak?"
"Yeah."
"We'd better get up then."

With the light on, two large wet areas were revealed directly under the beam that runs across the bay window, which was dripping merrily. I was puzzled where it was coming from. I'd already checked upstairs on Tuesday and there was no sign of any drips or damp patches.

It didn't take Nikki long to spot the wet patch on the wall though, which made it obvious why there was nothing to see in the upstairs room. There's a valley between us and next door. If the water can't flow down it properly and it backs up, it would overflow through the tiles at the lowest point. That could be because the gutters are blocked or it might simply be the volume of water - we've had torrential rain virtually non-stop for three days or so.

We fetched buckets, which guaranteed I wouldn't get back to sleep. The plopping noises in plastic and steel (we had to use a large cooking utensil too) was much louder than onto bare wood. I left Nikki to try to grab another hour's sleep in the rainforest while I made a coffee and sat worrying about how we'd certainly have to revise our thinking on when the roof needs replacing.