I might try and keep this brief, because I am not feeling very much like writing a diary tonight.
Mostly this is because I am tired.
We came home from work at one, and collapsed into bed at two. This was good and early because of it being Sunday. On a Sunday even the most hardened of drinkers staggers off home at a civilised hour, usually because they have got to get up at six to cook breakfast for a hotel restaurant full of early risers.
I woke up at six as well, and could not work out why I was awake.
After a while I realised I could hear an unusual noise.
I listened to it for a while, and wondered what it was.
It sounded just like water dripping on to a carpet.
I looked at the dogs, who were snoring next to me. They were not doing anything that might make a wet-carpet noise, which was a bonus.
I listened for a bit longer. The noise went on.
Eventually I got up.
I explored the house a bit, looking for water dripping onto a carpet.
I found it when I looked up.
There was an enormous crack in the ceiling below the water tank, and water was dripping through it.
Obviously I squeaked in horror and yelled for Mark.
Mark jumped out of bed in a hurry, in case we had burglars or another fire, and thought that a crack in the ceiling might not be quite so bad.
He went up to the water tank to investigate and discovered that water was weeping out around one of the joints.
He put a small bucket underneath it and went back to bed.
Obviously I could not sleep anymore then, so after a little while he got up and made coffee instead.
He said that it was the seal around the joint, that maybe it had been slightly disturbed when he had turned the water off to move the boiler the other day. It was thirty years old, he explained, and probably perished.
It might reduce tension for me to tell you now that this turned out to be exactly the problem. When the seal was eventually removed it crumbled into a handful of soggy dust.
It might only have been one small seal, but it turned out to be an awful lot of messing about.
First he had to let the fire go out, because of the water running through it.
Then he had to turn all of the water off, so that none of it came out of the taps or could flush the loo or wash the sheets any more.
Then he had to empty the water tank.
Only then could he squeeze himself into the tiny space behind Lucy’s chest of drawers and take everything apart.
He was not very pleased.
Actually he was very cross and sweary. He swore so much at one point that I offered to call a plumber. This made him very cross indeed.
I stayed downstairs after that.
I painted the corner where the gas boiler had been. It looked a lot better when I had finished.
Mark had put a clothes rail in it last night whilst I was at work. He also moved the kitchen out into the conservatory.
I screwed some new hooks into the walls. Obviously they were not actual new hooks, they were the old ones we had saved out of the boot cupboard, but they were new in that it was their first introduction to this space.
I hung our coats and bags up.
I put the ironing board away.
I tidied the slug pellets and the bordeaux mix back into the garden.
I put the boots away.
I hung the washing basket up.
Readers, we now have a tidy house. There are hardly any kitchens in it at all.
The living room is hoovered and ready for a Christmas tree and some children.
The water tank is not leaking any more.
We can flush the loo, and I got the sheets washed. They are drying on the landing as I write.
This isn’t any shorter than usual, and I have had enough of writing.
Have a picture of the Lake District.
