It's 10 o'clock, here is the news

We retired early tonight, both being knackered, to watch the news in bed. Then we heard some news we weren't expecting.

The doorbell rang. It's never a good sign when that happens and you're already in bed. Our first thought was that it was the neighbour. We had torrential rain here tonight and entered the bedroom to find the floor soaking wet again. Trouble is, even though we've had OUR roof replaced, HIS roof is still shelling tiles like there's no tomorrow, so the bits are still being washed into the gully, blocking the drain and leading to a repeat of this situation, which will undoubtedly require us to go through this again. So slipping into my dressing-gown and plodding wearily downstairs, I expected to find him on the doorstep wondering why HIS bedroom was under water.

I was wrong. It was the guys from down the road, enquiring whether we could feed their cat when they go away, and also bringing totally unexpected, shocking and very sad news. Our neighbour Pete, who lives directly opposite, died earlier today at work. Sat down to eat his lunch and had a fatal heart attack.

It's one of those situations you can't really grasp at first. You say inane things like "I only spoke to him last week," as if that should have been enough to prevent his death. Or that you might have - should have - spotted something that would have given you a clue of his impending demise. But we don't always get a warning shot. Sometimes it's as sudden as a click of the fingers and you won't ever get the chance to share a beer or a joke with him again. And then you think "Christ, he was nearly two years younger than me." I've found I've been thinking more about death anyway, since I turned 50, so this isn't going to help. Not in a morbid way, but more a sort of fatalistic realisation that I've almost certainly got less time left than I've had already, and the more time passes, the more true that becomes.

But for Pete, there's no time. So I guess the lesson is: make the most of what you've got.

My erection subsides

Finally, after a week of cajoling, chasing, and being put off by the weather, the scaffolding started to be...umm...whatever the opposite of erected is. De-erected. Reducted. Taken down.

They still had to dodge the showers, but by the time I came home from my briefing session (around 1pm) most of the top platform had gone. Apparently it takes almost as long to take down as it does to put up, which I suppose makes sense because the fastenings all have to be undone by as many turns as they were done up with, and the poles and planks have to be hauled back to the truck and stacked for the next job. The only part of the task that is slightly more complicated and time-consuming on the way up is making sure the base is secure and the platforms level, which I guess wouldn't take long for an expert.

So it'll take two full days to be completely rid of it, which might stretch into Wednesday, but at least it's all down from the front of the house now, thus making the property less attractive to burglars.

Friday Five

Thank God for Friday Fives, cos there's no news on the flippin' roof today. The whole day was a wash-out, weatherwise.

1. When were you born?
On a Saturday, just before breakfast, in a 20th century November.

2. What's your favorite photograph?
This is a really tough one. Partly because there are so many, but partly because I don't really think of things this way. It's unfair to pick one, and even if I did I'd probably feel different about it the next day. Or hour.

3. What's the longest distance you've run?
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Right.

4. What is familiar?
My home town. Family. Mates. Comfort food. The smell of a spring day. Weekend routine.

5. What do you count on?
Things never being simple.

Noisy stripper

We've had a noisy stripper on our roof all day today.

Yes, finally the weather took a turn for the better and some real progress was made. The gang were working at the front, but even so the noise of several hundred tiles slipping and sliding onto the scaffold could be heard all over the house, and went on for about an hour and a half.

Followed shortly by the noise of battens being nailed back on over the new felt. This created a serious cleaning up task in the attic room, as just about every clout nail on the ceiling has now popped and showered everything in the room in small pieces of plaster.

Felt a bit sorry for the men at the end of the day, actually. With only a small section left to do, the heavens opened and the rains came down like stair-rods. They must have been drenched within seconds, but having started that final section they had to finish it to make the roof weathertight.

One side to go - but it's the complicated side, since it has 3 Velux windows.

Conveying the tiles

The tiles arrived today, so the target for the day was to transport them all to where the action is. Remember I said you learn a lot watching tradesmen? Apparently you're not allowed to carry this stuff on a hod these days. Health & Safety. The only thing allowed on a ladder is yourself and your tools. Materials have to be conveyed with a crane, an elevator or, as in our case, a nifty little conveyor belt with a small two-stroke engine.

Such a small belt, actually, that had a special stick to support it halfway up. Bless.

When the tiles had all been racked and stacked, the rain started up again, so that was it for progress today. I reckon that's a day-and-a-half lost to weather so far (out of 3).

Rained off rip off

A day without action on the roof today, as the weather remained determinedly weathery all day. Here's the rear gable, taken from one of the upstairs Velux windows. These give a totally different perspective on the operation.

From ground level the scaffolding, as I've mentioned before, resembles a huge Meccano set. From above, it simply looks like a path around the top of the house. Maybe if I could cope with getting up there in the first place (and down again, of course) I could be a roofer after all! No?

No, you're right. It's a bit physical. I'll stick with hammering a keyboard.

The rip-off begins

With scaffold erection complete (yesterday! Much to the annoyance of my roofer who actually wanted to start last Friday), the stripping off of tiles could start.

Stripping off also entails re-felting and battening so that the roof remains watertight during the whole process (amazing what you learn when you're having work done!) which means when the weather is unpredictable it's prudent to work in small sections, felting as you go. This takes longer, but ensures you aren't stuck with an entire side to felt in the pissing rain.

As it happened, today, the team managed to strip only the front and back gables (or whatever the pointy bits are called) before rain stopped play.

The Scaffold

No, not the old Liverpudlian crew who did Lily the Pink. *Our* scaffold. For the roof. The erection started yesterday. Imagine that! A two-day erection! Makes your eyes water.

Fascinating watching it go up though. Not a job I'd fancy at all. Once they get going the structure grows by the minute. Reminds me of my old Meccano set.

Since I've still not recovered emotionally from the recent break-in, an unfortunate side-effect of having this framework surrounding the building is that I'm even more nervous now that access to the upper storeys is facilitated by a glorified climbing frame. Fortunately it should only be up for the next two weeks or so.

Glug, glug, splooooosh!

Our friendly neighbourhood rooferman came around this afternoon to inspect the problem.

Didn't take him long. I sometimes wish I was more use up a ladder, but above about ten feet I start to quiver and much higher than 15 feet I'm shaking so violently that the ladder starts to walk across the wall. I could never have been a roofer. Luckily for us, he can. And is. Up the ladder he went, returning after a few seconds to retrieve a length of plastic pipe from his van.

"It's either this, or I borrow your wellies," he said. "It's knee-deep up there."

!!!

A few seconds prodding about with his pipe and water began to gurgle down the main downspout. Then with an almighty rush, approximately a bath-full gushed out, overflowed the drain and ran splashing and flooding across the path and down the garden. Crikey. He climbed up into the valley and threw down a few handfuls of muck.

"Leaves, is it?" I asked knowingly.
"No," he said matter-of-factly. "Bits of tile. They're flaking so badly that bits of them are being washed down by the rain."

Eek! I got straight on the phone to the mortgage company to apply for an increased loan. There's no way we can let this go on any longer. :(

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.

Perfect timing

The day dawned bright and clear, which was a surprise in itself, but the surprise was compounded when the doorbell chimed and it was our friendly roofer to say he was making good use of the sunshine and had arrived to fix our roof.

Hurray! At last those damp patches will dry out on the study ceiling and I can get on with decorating the second half of the room.

But for today the important job was to cut the two lengths of skirting to go behind the rads that are being fitted tomorrow. I hunted around and found the two halves of my mitre saw (one in the shed, one under the backup dining table) and started in on the job.

One slight drawback: this is 6" skirting and my mitre saw will only do a 4¼" cut. So I had to complete most of the cut and then turn the board over to finish it off from the other side. With care, it worked out OK. One of the cuts was off by more than the others, but as I'm painting the boards anyway I'll be able to fill and sand the join and you'll never know the difference. Allegedly.