When I am reincarnated I want to be a snail

I do. A snail. Why? Because they carry their houses with them and their houses have neither dodgy flashing, nor blown pebble dashing, nor a hole in a tile, nor rotten wood, nor a chimney threatening to fall off the house, nor any of the other things that our builder found today when he and his builder's mate were swarming all over our roof. In fact, I doubt that snails EVER cross paths with builders in their entire lives. Why would they? I mean, once you've got a snail inside its house there isn't much room for anything buildery like double glazing, alcove shelving or a fitted kitchen, is there? 

Actually, I have just remembered the sushi bar I sometimes run for Primrose and Daisy which involves me, a brick, a paving slab and a few snails. Who very quickly become ex-snails. So perhaps if I was to return as a snail sans roofing problems I ought to be picky about whose garden I live in and make sure it's not the garden of someone like me. Who, despite being vegetarian, thinks nothing of crushing a few snails...it's for the chickens, okay? The chickens! They have protein needs. 

So, the flat roof is okay. And now moss-free. And the soil pipe (which was also under suspicion of leakiness) is dry as a bone. However, the flashing between the flat roof extension and the main house is not. Nor is a fairly big bit of the pebbledash rendering which apparently 'sounds hollow' when you hit it, which really made me want to say, 'Then don't hit it,' but I knew this would not solve the problem so I didn't. And the hole that Andy and I patched up is indeed a hole that should not be there and our patching was declared very amateur but we were forgiven because we did the patching in the rain which you aren't really supposed to do for successful sticking purposes, and I said we knew but what is one supposed to do when one has been let down by 5 roofers and one is feeling desperate to do something positive in order to try and save one's home from the vagaries of the the horrid weather. 

And our extraneous chimney which leads nowhere and does nothing is threatening to plummet to the ground if the next passing pigeon so much as farts at it. 

'We'll have to knock it down and rebuild it,' said Builder Mike. 

Now, I have much respect for Builder Mike. He is very reliable, keeps you 100% informed about what is going on, he is meticulous in his work and the words 'shoddy' and 'bodge job' are nowhere in his vocabulary. I would recommend him to anyone. But at his suggestion I looked at his builder's mate and his builder's mate looked at me and I said, 'Why don't we just take the chimney down and cap it off?' And the builder's mate said, 'That's just what I was going to say. It's not actually DOING anything is it?' And I said, 'No, it is a pointless and useless chimney that is letting water into the house.' 

And Builder Mike said, 'Of course! That makes better sense.' 

I can only assume that spending half the afternoon at altitude on our roof had made him over-excitable.

So a proper temporary repair was made over the repair that Andy and I made and, miracle of miracles, the wet patch in the hall which had returned with a vengeance this week mostly dried up within 2 hours. And even though the roof repairs are going to mean more spend out, I feel happy that something AT LAST is being done, that control has been taken by professionals who know what they are doing (as opposed to Maidstone's answer to Abbott and Costello up a wobbly ladder) and that a proper job will be done. 

In between running in and out of the house in response to Builder Mike's calls to go and stare at bits of roof as various discoveries were made, I tried to counteract building repair stress with some therapeutic arty-crafty stuff. I have convinced myself I need to be more experimental in my approach to crafting and just 'wing it' and see what happens. So I did. And this happened...

...two cushions. A bit rustic. A bit Heath Robinson. A bit...er...random. But I reckon that if I said to someone, 'What is this?' and they responded, 'A cushion,' then I have been fairly successful in my experimental approach. And they are all my own work - eight knitted squares with hearts on, sewn together and embroidered with chain and blanket stitch. And as you can see, Phoebe is so impressed she fell asleep next to them. 

And that is all I have to say about today. Oh, apart from Builder Mike is returning tomorrow morning to replace two fence panels that fell down in the Christmas storms. More expense. But then, just as I am not a roofer, neither am I a fencer. Needs must. Needs must.