10~6°C, rain
This plan: Bent the flashing under that window to help it drain over a roof tile. Temporarily shoved a wad of plastic in front of the point that the water seems to get in. Let’s see how it goes, today brings rain, lots of it. The wood will take so long to dry out though, but at least we’re heading towards a slightly less wet part of winter. I put the heating back on up there and am running a de-humidifier to grab what is probably condensation.
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12°C, Westerly
Investigating a damp patch in the attic. Started with taking up the floorboards in the top room to have a look. There is a dark patch around the point that the pipes come out of the floor to the radiator. That was my first suspect.
However, confusion remains. There are four pipes that end there too. Just open pipes with an elbow bend that is not connected to anything. So, switch on the heating to see whether any water comes out. None.
The boards behind are damp to the touch behind, right into the eaves. There is a roof window just above and my second suspicion lies there. I don’t have any expertise with roof windows but it doesn’t look as if the lead flashing is right. Rain water could, I suspect, run along its lower gutter and under a roof-tile each side. It should run onto a tile then downwards off the roof.
Let’s get an expert.
5°C, light winds, snow threatened then stayed away.
The desktop computer is no longer faulty. It couldn’t connect to the internet and this seemed to cause other problems too. The odd thing is, I didn’t fix it, no-one did. Perhaps pulling out the connections, or restarting the router has done the trick. Now it sees the internet after about three weeks of floundering. Best bit is that my iPod has new tunes and is all synchronised. Perhaps it was all down to a poor connection. It was a close call, I nearly bought a new router.
So for fun, I turned the overclock back up to 2.88Ghz & launched a flight sim– Rise Of Flight. It’s a good one, though not easy. Probably true of Cliffs Of Dover which I may buy sometime this holiday.
3°C, SW winds strong. Rain/sleet developing
The best thing about today: early this morning, at 7am, I was out with the dogs and I glanced up. Perhaps I glance up often, perhaps not. But on this occasion there was a meteorite shooting down to the west. It was a bright one too, at least as bright as Jupiter. That object has existed for thousands of millions of years and then ceased to exist in less than a second. It will stay with me for longer than that (the split second, not the millions of years). It may have been a Geminid.
This is the worst kind of weather for my house- the winds have swung round to the South-West so it blows across my house. It feels as if there is a window open somewhere. So far this winter it has blown along the ridgeline which doesn’t drive any draughts in this house. Temperatures are heading down to zero but at least the draw is good on my coal fire.
5°C, heavy showers
One week to go, the workload fails to abate. There was a time when school prep used to decline in the last part of term, a wind-down. Not any more. This is why I dream of a mid-winter holiday that is not spoilt by a commercial spend-orgy. Christmas spoils a perfectly good holiday.
Dogs’ Diner: This cheered me up yesterday in the middle of a three-hour marking binge.
10~7°C, thin above, the sun shone a bit too.
Gifts come my way, I have foods, drinks, and CDs. The Music I bought myself, it’s been a long time since last. Before, I would impatiently open the CD cases, sometimes struggle with the packaging and use the computer to put them on my iPod hurriedly. Today I looked over every cover, the inserts and bonus postcards. I have read some of the lyrics and tried to imagine the tracks within. I shalln’t hear these for a few days. There is a something inside that wants to make pictures, polish up the hand-eye co-ordination and hold a brush lightly. The best pictures have marks and the odd repair from dropping the brush. It’s best to hold them lightly you know.
November is warm and dry this year, but I want to go away. It’s going to take all of my skill to manage my sanity this coming year.
10°C, cloudy (thin ones)
Further to this autumn’s fungus theme on this blog, here is a surprise mushroom growing in my bathroom. That sounds grotty, it’s actually growing in the pot of a (so called) Dragon tree. The tree cost me about £4 from a supermarket, which I re-potted immediately on coming home last summer. Sometimes I put wood-bark chippings in pots, it’s supposed to stop weeds growing while it lives outside for the summer. This is remarkable enough to be almost ironic. Perhaps the fungus is growing on those wood chippings rather than reflecting any damp decrepit conditions in my bathroom.
Now this cold is steadily getting worse, my voice faded alarmingly during lessons today and deepened by an octave. Okay, not an octave, bit it’s gruff still.
I’m in bed. It’s 8.30pm. Goodnight.
12°C, light cloud
On this day, things went wrong. Firstly, my modem/wireless router has partly failed. There is no response from it via the network cable link that my desktop PC uses. Wireless internet access still works, but if any router settings need a change, then I may not be able to get back into the preferences page. So the wireless works, so does the WAN side, but the LAN cables don’t; that suggests it needs a firmware update, but will that leave it locked in.
Have you ever misplaced your bank cards? Mine are probably at work but to be safe the bank have disabled them for me. Yesterday, I spent 2 frantic hours searching, finally cancelling my weekend plans unable to buy petrol. I know they haven’t been used…
That’s the second time this week that valuable time has been lost to manic searching. The other at work wasn’t my fault but probably looked that way to the class. There, valuable marking time was lost in the face of a looming reports’ deadline. the more you try to get done, the less…
17C, rain then sun, wind lightening. CR:70.2 miles
After a few days off the bike, today’s ride felt easy, right up to the 70th mile. Only early sunset stopped me doing more. Home, the dogs were caught working on a puzzle. the chocolate box must have had a second layer, it just had to!
11°C, rain
A day for mortgage hunting. Important, necessary and will save over £7000 over the next decade, but ultimately boring. What else can you do on a wet autumn day at home. I have a slide-rule here on the table.
Day’s best feature- Bessie is home, she seems well and was striding in a springy way round the vet’s when I walked in and she recognised me. she’s been there for four days now. It was sad to be here without the ol’ girl. We thought the worst was going to happen, but she is reinvigorated. Awww.
Micycle 