Restoration

We were not terribly keen to get up and make a start this morning.

Usually we quite like the idea of life, and leap out of bed if not exactly with enthusiasm, but at least with some interest. Today, however, was earmarked for repairs, and we had to get on with it.

Mark did it. I spread dust sheets all over the loft and cleared up the worst of the mess made by the fire brigade so that it wouldn’t get trodden all over the house, and then I left him to it, just being about in case he needed an extra pair of hands, which sometimes he did.

He had got to fix the sawn-off ridge pole. It is not good to have a ridge pole on your house which is not fastened down to anything. He cut a steel plate and bolted it to the wall and then welded on a steel ridge-pole support. There is a picture at the top.

It still needs some more welding, but it was a rushed job so that he could get outside and start fixing the roof before any weather happened. So far we have not yet had weather, hurrah for the kindly Weather Gods, and it won’t be the end of the world if we do now because the worst of the holes are gone.

The ridgepole is no longer anywhere near the chimney any more, so if ever we have to have the fire brigade again they will have no reason to think it might be a good idea to take the roof off, because the roof does not touch the inside of the chimney.

After that he took the window off and climbed on the roof to start cementing the chimney back together. It is a massive hole, and we haven’t yet found all of the stones that came out of it, although we have been wandering up and down the road looking hopefully in people’s gardens.

I was of no help at all really, so I made myself useful within calling distance by cleaning the children’s bedrooms and bathrooms and then retiring to the next floor to sort out the depressing mass of paperwork which seems to have accumulated over Christmas. Every now and again I had to dash up to the loft to be helpful, which made me feel undeservedly useful and important.

Apart from that I have paid the window cleaner, which is good, and written to the accountant, which is even better, and I have copied all of the children’s school dates into my new diary. I have already found one glaring mistake on double-checking this. I don’t know how I manage to be such an abject failure in the timetabling department, over the course of the next year if anybody sees any glaringly obvious about-to-be-mistakes, please let me know.

I am going to cut this short because it has been a day of labour rather than thrills, and instead I have added a second picture. You can just about see Mark on the roof next to the chimney, he is jolly brave. What a good thing it is that he can manage to make so many things all right again when they go wrong.

I am very glad indeed to be married.