Tuesday 23rd June 2026

Woken around 0300 by a violent thunder storm...the rain hammered down on our leaky roof for over an hour. Woke around 0930 and made tea. Porridged. The damp patch in the back bedroom not looking worse, but my damp meter readings are up 5%. At a bit of a loss as to what to do...the roofer has quoted us £2,000 to add a layer of membrane to the parapet with No.5. Aki cycled off to tai chi...already 25C out there! I caught up with my blog at the laptop, and listened to some music the while. I ventured out into the temperatures to do a bit of a shop at Waitrose. Bumped into Lynne from upstairs...she'd had a great time in Madagascar. I promised to send her details of a couple more roofers I'd come across on the Which? website...told her we were having our own roofing problems. I was surprised to learn that her back bedroom ceiling hadn't let in any water during last night's deluge! Came home and put some lunch together. Enjoyed a Magnum for afters! Had to venture back out again...got some sparkling water from Tesco across the road...we'll be needing that...it's 32C this afternoon! Warmed up the chicken de-frosted chicken cacciatore for dinner. Settled down to watch England v Ghana...a rather dull hour and a half ensued as Ghana sat back and England failed to break through the ranks of yellow shirts. It was too hot to go to bed, so stayed up and watched the Panama v Croatia game...though I nodded off for most of it, despite it being way more exciting than the England game! Got to bed after 0100...