Yawn 2

Did I say it was sunny yesterday at some point? I forget. Especially as I’ve been woken by wind lashing the rain against the window and the return of my favourite sound, the drip in the ceiling.

I last experienced that sound about eight years ago when we last lived somewhere that had a roof (obviously everywhere we’ve stayed had a roof but we’ve normally been ground or first floor).

Glasgow Road in Dumbarton, top floor flat, our first mortgage. It was one-bedroom, galley style kitchen with a nice size bedroom and living room in an old style tenement building which was constructed around 1910 if memory serves me correctly (there was a stone plaque embedded near the eves, I obviously don’t remember them being built).

I awoke on a night very similar to this one, the wind whipping up the Clyde Estuary slamming rain and debris against our leaky bedroom window. I got up to go to the loo, and as I walked to the foot of the bed I leapt back. Why is there a wet patch on the floor? I wondered.

Anyway, long story short, I ended up in the loft at 4 am, patching up a hole in the roof. It was a temporary botch job designed to get us through the night until we could get someone to come and replace the slates that had been dislodged (not something I fancied trying on the roof of a four floor tenement – I’m not the best with heights).

About a week later I was told I was to be made redundant from my first job. We still hadn’t gotten the roof seen to, and it slipped our minds. We remembered about it one day watching a thunder storm from our living room window in Aylesbury*.

I wonder if the new owners ever got that hole fixed? Or is my black bin bag funnel still in place**?

* Having lived near the coast all of our lives, Louise and I were amazed when our first big summer storm took place. So little wind! Where was the horizontal lashing rain? Fascinating.

** Ingenious this. Two bits of cord tied at sloping angles between the tightly spaced rafters. A black bin bag taped over them so that the drip was caught, then trickled down the bin bag into the water tank (handily right next to the drip).

Written By

Long time blogger, Father of Jack, geek of many things, random photographer and writer of nonsense.

Doing my best to find a balance.

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