Problem solved?

It's Friday morning and the roofer has just been. Observant chap that he is, he noticed the bottom of our downpipe at ground level had somehow been squeezed virtually flat, and, as a result, it was blocked with debris, meaning that when we get really heavy rain - like we did on Saturday night and Monday, and when we were in USA - the pipe just backs up with water, which then cascades down through our bedroom window. He sawed off the bottom section and proved his point:

He went up on the roof - brave man! - and checked the flashings etc and there was a small bit of damage caused by the water backing up, so he fixed that as well. Job done - hopefully.

I went on another longish cycle yesterday and when I came back, I noticed there was activity on the old Tor-na-Coille filling station site. It's been the subject of various planning discussions etc, but agreement has finally been reached and the development is going ahead at last, so they were erecting the advertising sign yesterday. I stopped and spoke to Alan Buchan, who told me they have sold one already. The price is £325K for a 2 bedroom, 2 storey town house style. The timing is not ideal from his point of view, given the current downturn in the Oil sector, but at least the site will be tidied up now - albeit all the trees are coming down:

A day of rest for me today, I think. Jo has got her swimming this afternoon, but I've had 3 days in a row of exercise and that's enough for now, I think. Relax until this evening's Headbang sounds like a plan.

Fringeless

Well we never made it to Edinburgh this year. As we went to bed on Saturday night, with the rain lashing down outside, all of a sudden, water started pouring down the inside of our bedroom window and we had to rush to get towels - and eventually buckets - to minimise the damage.

It brought to mind our return from USA when we noticed that the inside windowsill in our bedroom was warped a little by water ingress. Initially we put this down to heavy rains when we were away and the windows weren't securely shut, but we later noticed that all the family photo frames on the windowsill in the front room downstairs, immediately below our bedroom, were also water damaged.

It was as recently as March that we had some fairly extensive work done on our roof etc, and the current leak seems to be coming from the same area.

With the forecast for more wet weather, we decided we could not risk going to Edinburgh on Sunday morning, so our tickets for 7 shows - and our train tickets, which I'd just booked a few hours earlier - were all wasted. We couldn't even get hold of any roofers or our insurance brokers or insurers on Sunday, so had to wait until Monday to make these contacts. The earliest the roofer can come is Friday morning!

Sod's law, Sunday was an absolutely glorious day, but it rained again on Monday when I took this short video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVZOkcJv1_A

We compensated ourselves by finally using the voucher I got from my replacement on my retirement for a meal at Raemoir House Hotel on Sunday. It was lovely:

So instead of walking the streets of Edinburgh, rushing from show to show on Sunday and Monday, we virtually did nothing - apart from the dinner above. Monday was so bad that I couldn't even get out for a compensatory cycle, but I managed to do this yesterday (Tuesday) - and it was a long one - approaching 40 kms. I was completely gone by the time I got back home, some 4 hours (including a coffee stop) after I'd left.

Of course, Tuesday afternoon was spent through in Inverurie as usual.

For those that haven't noticed, I've been busy again with my Chronicles. After 5 months' of inactivity here, I've now posted three times in the last 10 days. I'm now half way through 2001 - not long to go until I catch up with this blog diary, which started in March, 2007. The link to the Chronicles - and all my other blogs - is on the sidebar at the right of this blog.

Coming up, it's the second of this year's Headbangs on Friday night and then next week, it's the last official week of our midweek golf - and it's a busy one. I'm playing at Trump on Monday for the first time, then it's the last night of our Summer Quaich at Banchory on Wednesday, followed by the Terry Edmonds' Memorial at Aboyne on Friday. On the Sunday immediately after that we head to Boat of Garten for what will be our 60th outing in our 30th year of going there. Whew.