The new roof progresses at a pace that looks like they’re doing something above me, maybe not breaking sweat or indeed moving so slow they’ll get hypothermia in this minging weather. It’s a just enough endeavour.
The 1930’s slates are gone and we have black plastic sheeting and wooden batons to keep out the winter weather.
Aye, this is definitely just when you want to be doing a roof.
Dunk.
Dunk.
Dunk.
I thought it was in a dream, it was maybe a really slow version of Iron Man’s bass drum intro being played ironically in a psychedelic dream sequence in a movie within my dream, I was slavering on the pillow amounts of tired, I wan’t reading the situation from a script so confusion was entirely likely.
Dunk.
That’s inside the room. I was back in a movie, Aliens this time. Cool.
Dunk.
I looked up in the dark, I think it was up anyway, it was dark remember.
Dunk.
Ah shite, that’s in the attic.
I put the light on, no water to be seen, I swung my legs out and put my glasses on, still no water to be seen and those legs aren’t pretty. I got dressed with what was on the floor between me and the bedroom door and grabbed a headtorch from the table.
As my senses grinded back into operation like the rusty gears they’ve become in lockdown I realised that the rain was pissing down outside and being driven at a jaunty angle by a howling wind. Oh yes indeed, this is new roof weather.
The fur lined Converse I slipped into were just so damned nice on my bare feet I stopped at the bottom of the attic ladder to wriggle my toes and goo ahhh.
In these tough times I’ll take a little joy when I can get it.
I found the leak pretty quick after some joist hopping, two rotten slate nails sticking through the sarking had near constant drips hitting a bare patch of plasterboard above where me head had been on the pillow. A few inches either way and the drips would have been hitting the insulation silently and the whole thing could have played out very differently.
I thank the dearly departed mice for whose traps I had moved the insulation for. I hope that last taste of Nutella they had was very nice.
A bucket was placed with old t shirt inside to dampen the sound and I was back in bed as fast as I get could get there.
It was half past four.
And I was wide awake. Planning my morning phone call.
