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10-Mar-2008: "Ilfracombe Weather"

Here's an update for those of you interested in the wind and rain sweeping in from the Atlantic.

The weather forecast predicts 'storm-force winds of up to 80 miles-per-hour'.

I'll write updates as the night goes on.

01:56: Rain and strong wind blowing from a south-southwest direction, hitting the kitchen window. In the old bedroom, the roof is leaking and is busy filling the bucket.

02:30: The wind is banging the windows and I can feel the vibration through the floor (the flats in this house have very thin floors - you can hear everything going on in the flat below). It's not going to get more interesting than that unless the roof blows off or the windows break. I tried to get a picture of the weather but this is difficult because it's dark.

The temperature in the kitchen is 18C. In the old bedroom, it is a bit cooler at 17C. The leak in the roof is now dripping a lot and I'm going to be emptying the bucket soon. I made the hole in the ceiling a bit bigger because it was full of water - the ceiling would have come down if I hadn't done that.

05:01: The worst of the rain is over. The leak in the ceiling continues to drip, and I've pulled off a strip of wallpaper, which would have fallen anyway. The smell of damp is very strong. Behind the wallpaper is a lot of very mouldy plasterboard and a few spiders (it's good to see some life in this place, other than me!). The damp problem has been present since before I moved in. The response from the estate agents handling this place has been dismal: they got a couple of builders to look at it, and the builders said that the ceiling would have to go. That was more than a month ago and since then, I've heard nothing. Still, at least they've done a bit more than the previous agents, who must have known about the leak because I took pictures of it and showed them. I am of the opinion that estate agents generally suck when it comes to rentals.

Click 'more..' to see some pictures of the leaking roof.

07:42: The rain has changed from a 'driven' freezing type to a drifting, scattered type. If you've read 'So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish' by Douglas Adams, you will recall a man called Rob McKenna, who drove a lorry. Rob was a Rain God and the clouds loved him and followed him everywhere. He had categorised .. erm.. I think it was about 400 different types of rain. With variations in air temperature, wind velocity, air pressure and many other factors, I can well believe that there are 400 types.

Minor characters from The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy: Rob McKenna

18:18: The light is fading from the sky. It's raining vertically now - probably around a number 120 in Rob's list. I'm watching Annabelle The Sheep dancing to Garbage's 'Sleep Together'. I don't think that sleeping with someone will sort any problems out, and it may cause a few more. Still, what do I know.

These pictures are all rather orange - my apologies for that.