Richard is away right now....

I'm off doing something or other involving school websites, gin and a terrible feeling of ennui right now. Hence very little blogging.
Just pretend you've read a few hundred words of biting, incisive commentary and I promise to be back in a little while.

Christmas blues.... it's the house again.

I alluded to the crappy mood I've been in these last couple of days in the little Christmas report a couple of days ago. But I still can't really do any more than that. It's one of those strange, reasonless depressed states that I seem to fall victim to so easily.

It's been a strange Christmas holiday really. Very low key. Molly has loved it all of course, and Louise had more time off than she normally gets and enjoyed it as well. But me? I let things get to me more than I should have done, got too stressed out and fed up with things, hit a bout of depression head on just after the big day and just about kicked it in time for New Years.

The house has been playing up again. Again. Some days I really feel we just can't catch a break with this and there are times when I really feel that, although I wouldn't change where we live in terms of the town, I'd certainly change where we live in terms of the house. The roof still leaks and the outside walls are showing a few signs of the water penetration coming back. The main problem lies with confidence in the builder. He's messed us around so much over the 18 months that this has all been going on that if he were to turn up tomorrow and tell me the sky is blue I'd not only go and check but I'd want a second opinion on it.

We're deep in the complaints procedure with the NHBC at the moment and it really looked for a while that the builder had completely washed his hands of us. Which was great. That meant that the NHBC would have to sort out their contractors to come in and put things right. I'd get my second opinion and all would be well. But then builder boy comes in at the very last minute and says he's possibly going to be able to sort it out. Not great.

Like every big organisation the NHBC just loves it's rules and notice periods. So it has to give the builder another couple of weeks to organise something. I'm really hoping that he doesn't bother. But he'll just end up getting in touch at the very last minute and stringing it out again. And then if he fixes it and tells me it's all okay this time, I'm going to be left wondering if it really is. After all, he's said it was all sorted last time. And the time before that. And the time before that. And the time .....

You get the idea.

Hence no confidence in what he says. We're seriously considering spending the extra money to get someone independent in if the original builder does do something. It's worth the extra expense just to have that peace of mind.

In fact, if I had one real wish for 2009, it would be just that: peace of mind over the house. I've spent the better part of two years continually worrying about something or other to do with the house and i'd just like the worry to stop.

So that rather sullied the wonderful christmastime I was planning on having. Maybe this time next year I'll be able to look back on the season with a lighter heart and more enjoyment. Yes, there's always next year.

Weekend misery - it's that roof again.....

Oh yes, here we go again, the roof is leaking once more. But this time it's doing so in a place different from the last time (which was the place the idiot builder was meant to have fixed last time). This time it's doing so from a place the builder was meant to have fixed the time before last. I swear, if I ever meet that idiot there shall be blood.

Anyway, today has been spent with me in various stages of depressed isolation and misery as I do so very well. When not in misery I've been in the attic with plentiful towels trying to mop up the water and stop it getting through to the ceiling below.

As usual, I've been feeling crap but Louise and Molly have been absolute troopers, letting me get on with it when I needed to and saying all the right things when I needed to hear them. God knows how i'd get through these times without them to be honest.

Monday morning we're back on the phone to the NHBC to try to hurry the whole process along. It seems the builder wants nothing to do with it anymore and it's all with the NHBC now. Although they keep saying they have to give the builder the opportunity to sort out the repairs himself. Too bloody late for that. Anymore waiting and the water damage will start to get really serious. Surely that idioy had his chance when we spent so long phoning him asking him to put it right? We shall see how it develops. If it's not done before Christmas I think we shall be needing many more towels...

It's a Wonderful Life ....... Oh yes it is.

Today was a day of surprises, disasters, redemption through film and a shocking realisation.....

So, let me tell you a story.....
The day started out much like any other Sunday; slowly, tiredly and with a blistering headache. Our plan to head off to York to see some Christmas stuff and do a little shopping was altered slightly when I got the idea into my thick head to get the car washed today. Realising none of the car washes would be working due to the freezing weather but I figured we'd head out to the hand car wash on the A1079.

Off we went and joined the queue. The long queue. But my wonderful wife and child agreed that we'd stay in the queue as we might as well get it all done now. Time passes, we snake slowly forward in the queue as each car comes out glistening. It's freezing cold, the heater's on and the radio is keeping us company.

Can you see where this one's going? All that electrical stuff on and the car stopped without the engine running?

Yes, I went to turn it on and got nothing. Just that sickening click, click, click of a dead battery. I'd love to say I handled it well. Love to be able to say that I kept completely cool. But I didn't. I did the works, got upset, shouted about how unfair it all was and what a crappy day it was. Moaned about the money it was going to cost to get fixed, shouted a lot and upset Louise and Molly.

To skip to the end, we got a jump start, drove home and since then I've turned it over a few times during the night and all seems well. Whether it will be okay in the morning I have no idea; guess I'll find out in the morning. Molly and Louise accepted my apologies for blowing my top and we settled down for the night.

Which is when it started to get slightly strange. Because tonight all three of us went to Pocklington Arts Centre to see It's A Wonderful Life.



It's A Wonderful Life is one of my favourite Christmas films. Along with Miracle On 34th Street and Love Actually it's a film I will always end up watching at some point during the Christmas season. So to have it at the local cinema was something we just couldn't pass up. We even convinced Molly to come along and she rather enjoyed it. Some things went over her head perhaps and it was rather a surprise for her to see both mummy and daddy wiping away tears. I always start blubbing when George is on the bridge and realises that he's got his second chance and it gets much worse as he's running back down Main St of Bedford Fall. But I start to really weep at the very end, as the townsfolk come in and give George money to rescue him and the Buildings and Loans firm. I controlled it somewhat with Molly there, but there were still plentiful tears to wipe away by the end.




So, what do these two things have in common? The battery and my moods and It's A Wonderful Life? Well, as Louise pointed out to me afterwards - I am George Bailey. It's me on screen. Okay, not the owning a bank, saving his brother's life and generally being the lynchpin of his community, but the moods, the stresses, the feeling of confinement and that life is just bearing down on me - that's all me.

Oh, dear god. She's right as well.

I guess the start of December is as good a place as any to make a change then?

Complete and utter stupid behaviour

There's something completely and utterly messed up about getting to midnight and, having just finished one review for the FPI blog, deciding to spend another hour on the next one instead of heading for bed as it's back to work in the morning.

But there's something really, really fucked up beyond belief when, at 1am, having finished the second review I decide to get the school stuff together, sort out the file, load up the usb sticks and start bloody work on a lesson plan.

Therapy would have a field day with me. The depressed mood hasn't really lifted. Spent the entire day just black as black can be. Nothing brought me to life, nothing made me snap out of it. And that lasted till about 8 this evening. Molly and Louise had kept away. Molly kept sneaking me little notes and work she'd done on this big DFC review / art thing we're trying to do. Very sweet. She knows something's wrong with me but has learnt that I snap out of it eventually. That will probably resurface later on when she's a teenager.

This evening I just started to cheer up a little. Not much mind, just enough to start thinking properly about it. Still stressed about the roof, still worried that we're never going to get it sorted, but steeled towards talking to the builders about it in the morning.

Right, back to lesson pland. 1:30? Early yet!

Here comes the rain again ... drip, drip, drip

Yorkshire. Winter. Rain. Leaking Roof.
These things just keep coming back to haunt us.
I was going to bed last night when I heard the familiar drip....drip......drip....drip when I went in to tuck Molly in. Get the ladders out, into the attic above Molly's room, turn the torch on and no surprise at all - there's the water coming in through the roof again.

Obviously what's happened is that the water has been coming in for a while, dripping in and soaking all of the cavity wall insulation until it can saturate it no more and finds release by dripping onto the plasterboard of the ceiling below. No marking on the ceiling fortunately but that's small consolation really.

As always, it happens on a weekend so I get to be miserable, stressed, depressed and generally feel crap all day and night before I can start the all to of familiar cycle of frustration that is trying to get hold of our builders. We looked back on the letters today and realised it's been 21 months since we first reported this to the builders.

Both Louise and I are wondering how on earth we're ever going to get this sorted properly. It's hugely depressing. What a shit end to what has been a lovely half term.

Too much to do, Too much to do, Too much to do..... Anxiety time

Of course, after such a wonderful holiday, it seemed only fair that things come crashing down again.
Not only do I have to contend with the oncoming return to school after 6 weeks off, but I appear to be rather unwell.

So unwell in fact that I went to the doctor about it. He reckons it's possibly a chest infection that's causing the tightness in my chest and the fluttering heart. But I've talked to others who think it has far more chance of being Anxiety of some sort.

Those who know me will, at this point, be nodding their heads in a knowing and not very surprised way. But for those that don't: I'm a melancholic (depressive) with crap sleeping habits, a tendency to obsess over even the smallest things and a habit of getting stressed over these self same tiny problems. (See Black Dog, Sleep and Health for examples)

So the idea of me being overly anxious is so plausible as to be almost certain. Especially when we have a little look at some of the symptoms:

(From NHS Direct & The BBC) People with generalised anxiety may find that they:

• easily lose their patience
• have difficulty concentrating
• think constantly about the worst outcome
• have difficulty sleeping
• become depressed and/or
• become preoccupied with, or obsessional about, one subject

These mental symptoms lead to, and are supported by, physical symptoms. These can include:

• excessive thirst
• periods of intense pounding heart
• periods of feeling winded
• headaches
• dizziness
• pins and needles

That's exactly me. The mental symptoms are me all the time. The physical ones have manifested over the last few weeks or longer, culminating in the pounding heart and tightness in the chest I'm feeling now. I think I see a radical change in lifestyle coming on.
So of course, as in so many things, now that I have been to the doctors and then got more information I'm probably going to have to go back to the doctors and ask him about Anxiety and if it could be exactly what's causing them problems. But at least now, between the possible treatment from the doctor and an idea of what's going on I can try to effect some improvements.

And as usual with any posts about my health, please don't worry, all is fine. I'm posting it because I'm working on it. Actually writing about it makes me feel better about it, isolates it, defines it and makes me concentrate on making it better.
It's all the crap I don't write about that you need to be worrying about!

The long dark working day of the ict technician....

Another day, another nightmare, another crisis of confidence.
Got in today and admin couldn't get onto the network. Sorted with telephone assistance from network expert who did the reconfigure yesterday. That was the high point of the day.

It just went downhill from there.
The plan was to go around the place and sort out the computers, put printers on, sort desktops, make sure everything was where I wanted it etc etc.
I got as far as the ict suite. There are huge software issues. At least 5 bits of network software just aren't working right. And not coincidentally, they're not working right on all of the machines that I've had a hand in setting up. Great.

So by the end of the day I was totally stressed out, fed up and contemplating looking for an easier job. The Teaching Assistant side of this job, working with the children, is so wonderful. But the network and hard ict side is just proving too much right now. Maybe I'll get through it this time. But what about next time. Or the time after that?

Not happy. What a tremendous understatement that is.

Bruton Mansions Sunday and the misery of networking

Molly and Louise are lazing around downstairs watching Oliver on dvd. (Molly wanted to get this after watching the godawful advert for a west end musical that the BBC is putting out right now.)

I retreated upstairs to my desk. After checking mail, checking newsfeeds and generally mooching round the interweb for a bit I've started musing on the last week.

It's my worst week ever at work. The problems we've had with the network have completely destroyed my confidence in my ability to actually do the job. The problem lies with my lack of network knowledge. Any network issues are a challenge and anything more than minor problems really cause me trouble. So far I've either been lucky or blessed with just one major network issue when the whole thing went down but was fixed within half an hour by the people who put the thing in place initially.

Now we have the prospect of having to roll out the SIMs registration thing across the network and things have become more difficult. Part of it really isn't my fault though. The initial network setup was done either badly or lazily, having a network without any real defined users and everyone on similar access levels was never a good idea. Unfortunately this is now my problem and I'm going to have to get someone in to fix it so we can work SIMs and the Learning Platform thing that East Riding is rolling out over the summer.

So I was left feeling completely defeated by my inability and utterly miserable.
The only upside was that after talking to first Louise, then the ICT coordinator and then the head, I was reassured that they thought I was doing a good job, concentrating on the pupils and their ICT skils rather than the technical side f things.

Plus I have to keep thinking that I'm not being paid to be a network manager and that the amount of time I'm contracted for means that I have a whole 8 hours spare when I'm not in lessons.
That's 8 hours to do everything. All the various problems the teachers manage to get themselves into, generating new resources, updating the website and all the other countless little jobs that make up my day. It just doesn't add up and certainly gives me no time to sort out the network.
So like everyone says when something goes wrong with the network I just have to accept that I don't have the skills or the time to sort it out and have to get the professionals out.
But with my control freak personality I'm finding it really hard to actually accept this.

So all week and most of the weekend has been spent in a hideous bad mood. Utterly miserable and wondering what the hell I'm meant to be doing.

Tomorrow I go in and try to find out how much we're going to get charged for the network update. Hopefully I shall be able to pick myself up and start enjoying it again.

State of the me, Easter 2008 - part 3

Relaxing.

I seem completely incapable of doing this relaxing lark.
I don't seem to be able to relax at all, and I think it's getting worse. I function best when I seem to have a to-do list as long as my arm. It gives me a sense of purpose and a goal. But I have noticed that when I am successful and manage to reduce the to-do list to something manageable, to a point where I can actually see the end of everything I need to do, I start to stall, start to slow down.
This means I'm deliberately sabotaging my life, deliberately preventing myself from taking time to actually relax. It's a very disturbing realisation to be honest. Does this really mean that I subconsciously don't want to have any relaxing time?

Then there's my completely screwed up metabolism. Without any external influence at all, I truly believe I'd wake up sometime around 2 or 3 in the afternoon, laze around for a while, have breakfast around 6pm and then slowly begin to come round until the 10 or 11pm mark, which is when I start work and go through to 4am.
And this is pretty much exactly how I got through a whole chunk of university , particularly around exam time. I'd deliberately alter my sleep patterns to fit around the best time for revision and work. It worked.

But of course, I can't do that all the time.
Life always seems to get in the way. beautiful, wonderful life.

So I adapt and compromise. This results in my waking up badly when I need to, being a bit crap in a morning, then crashing around 6pm, only to wake up mentally around 11pm, get creative and mentally raring to go until I force myself to go to bed sometime in the early morning, 1am, 2am, 3am.
Then I repeat over and over.
Until the weekend where I know I can have a lie-in and my body crashes out.

But this is the one thing I have real control over. I can't overnight fix my anxieties over the house or the job, but I can force myself to go to sleep at a regular time and I can attempt to relax more and relax better.
I live in hope.

State of the me, Easter 2008 - part 2.

The Job.

I love the job, it's everything I wanted to do. Working in a primary school is incredibly rewarding and every day gives me so much enjoyment that I just couldn't imagine doing anything else.

But there are moments in the job when I have reason to think back many years to when I was working at Lordswood Girls Secondary in Birmingham. I was science technician there and bloody good at it. I'd advanced to the stage where the job took care of itself and there was very little reason to be stressed out about it. Of course, the management team at the school seemed to spend the entire time looking for new and interesting ways to fuck over the staff, which was where all the stress of the job came from.

Anyway, at some point a few years into the job our ICT technician left and they were trying to work out what to do about it. I was as much of a computer bod there as I always have been and knew my way around the basics. So they offered me the job. I politely turned it down giving as my main reason the love of being a good science techy and a lack of confidence in my abilities to do the ict job.
What I didn't say was what I'd told the outgoing ict technician; that I thought being an ict technician in a secondary school is a completely impossible job. The demands put upon the ict technician are never ending, there is never a stable position and the jobs never really end. Something is always needing fixing, something is always obselete, something is always wrong.

Which is exactly what I think of when I worry about the ict job at the primary school. My basic problem is that I know enough to get by but not enough to convince myself of that. When I was hired the head made it quite clear that my role was primarily to work with the pupils on ict. The whole technician side of it was a distant secondary priority. And it was with great pleasure that the last time the head walked through the ict suite with visitors she introduced me as the ict technician and teaching assistant.
So I know I'm doing the job that she wants me to and from the feedback I get from her and the staff I think I'm doing it well.

But still, at the back of my mind is the feeling of what if? What if something goes wrong? What if I'm needed to do more networky stuff than I'm capable of doing? Will the head be as understanding when I tell her I can't do it and we need to get people in at a few hundred quid a day to sort the network out?

Again, as with the house, much of this is ridiculous and merely my worries getting the better of me.

State of the me, Easter 2008

I've also decided, in a addition to those resolutions in the last post, that continually posting the state of my depression and my current mood is of very little help to me - unless someone out there is a qualified psychotherapist and wants to do a free consult via the comments section.

So, without really wanting to bemoan my existence too much I just want to make comment on my current thinking:

As usual I'm worrying far too much about various things, which can be neatly categorised into a few boxes: house, job, relaxing, moving forward.

House - I used to be a very chilled out person about things like the house. Back in Brookfield Road, where we used to live in Birmingham I started out worrying very little about the house. It was fine, things went wrong, they got fixed. I had neither the ability or the inclination to do anything about it. But a little knowledge seems to be a very dangerous thing where it comes to my mind. So over the years, as I've learnt more about houses and how they can go wrong, I've learnt enough to worry but still not enough to really do much more than that.

Now, since coming up to Yorkshire and moving into this new build house, I've worried nearly continuously about various things to do with the house. Louise, as always, is by far the more sensible about this. She acknowledges that things go wrong and we need to get them fixed, but she shares neither my incessant worrying or my stress about it. I, on the other hand, seem to do nothing but worry.

Of course, it hasn't really helped that every problem we've had with the house just hasn't really been sorted. The roof's been the main problem and still isn't completely sorted over a year after we first started pestering the builders with it.

Our builders, like most builders nowadays just don't seem capable of communicating with the owners of their properties. They still cling to the old ways, where builders just built houses and then had nothing more to do with them. It's meant to have changed and they're meant to do after care now. It's all part of the NHBC guarantee. But anyone who's ever tried to get hold of their builder once the build is over will very probably tell you a similar story. Difficult to get hold of, impossible to get to commit to fixing your problems, full of half promises and generally a bit rubbish.

Other things on the house that we have had problems with: the roof, the shower pipe, the shower itself have been genuine problems. On top of that there's been my own ridiculous worries about various aspects of the house. I spent so long when we moved in worrying about the floors of the first floor. Our old house, being over a hundred years old, had solid beams and floorboards. Our new house has these horrible floating floors. I still find it weird the amount of movement there is in the house when I walk around it. And those worries just don't seem to go away no matter how many people tell me that it's completely normal and all part of a new house.

The ongoing and genuine problems with the house have been such to fundamentally undermine my basic trust and confidence in the house. My reasonable, logical mind can tell me that it's all okay and these unfortunate experiences with the house are just teething trouble and shouldn't mean that the whole house is likely to come crashing down.

I'm trying to work on these issues with the house, but it's really, really difficult. The roof may be, finally, nearing completion but the latest trouble with that bloody shower pipe just makes me worry more and more about the way the house has been built.

Obviously there's nothing I can really do except try to get over it. Easy to say, a long time and very difficult to bloody well do.

Black Dog - oh fuck it......

That's it. No more whiny miserable posting about me being all fed up.
At least not for a few days anyway.

In truth I'm feeling a bit better right now.

Builder is coming round tomorrow to look at pipe with puzzled expression. We're just hoping he'll be willing to have a look at it and then fix it even though the house is outside the two year NHBC guarantee, other wise we're going to have to look at getting other builders in and claiming on the house insurance and getting the insurers to hit the builder for the money as it's down to their shoddy workmanship that we've got the problem.

In the meantime I will shut up and stop whining.

World Book Day 2008 - ties right into the ol' Black Dog

I'm still down. Nothing is any better. Now I have a huge stress related headache.

But life somehow goes on and we're getting Molly's World Book Day costume ready.
She's going as Lucy from Peanuts. We're in the middle of making her psychiatrist's booth and I look at the book we're using as reference.
And it occurred to me ........... That's just how I feel right now.......

Black Dog - It just gets worse. And worse. And worse.

The last post was written mid afternoon, when I was home from work and the drain/plumber types were packing up.
I went back to school, came home, poked around the hole they'd left in the wall some, which doesn't seem to leak when we fucking well want it to. That would be far to bloody easy after all.
Drop Molly off at trampolining, come home, meet Louise, we go out to look at the wall.

In the dusk light it becomes shockingly, horribly awful that it's a much bigger problem than we thought. There's a huge wet patch on the bricks around the shower pipe.

This is now into worst case scenario.
We're out of the 2 year builder guarantee and covered in years 3-10 by the NHBC who don't do pipework problems. We still can't get in touch with the builder over this and no doubt he'll tell us it's nothing to do with him anymore now the first 2 years of the NHBC guarantee is up.
So now we've got a leak somewhere that's obviously going down the outer brick layer of the bloody wall. And it's been doing that for ? God only knows.

Frankly we're at the no idea what to do stage. And I'm just in the life's unfair, really, really, really depressed stage. I just can't see a way out of this that doesn't involve ripping the bathroom out or ripping the ceiling below out or ripping the wall to bits. Or a combination of the three.
And none of those come cheap either.

I don't know what to do. Don't know who to call. Don't know how we're going to fix this.
It's certainly not looking great. I'm feeling sick with worry all of the time now. It's like someone continually gut punching me. Nothing can bring me out of the mood and it's all I can do to plaster on a happy face for Molly's sake. If I could, right now, I'd just get rid of the bloody house altogether.
So much for moving up to Yorkshire and enjoying a peaceful, stress free and calm life. Nothing right now could be further from that at all.

Black Dog just hanging around ........

What's the worst thing a workman can say to you regarding a problem?
"Don't know what it is, just keep an eye on it"

That's what they're saying about the leak from the showerpipe.
I, of course, am now convinced it's leaking into the walls and in a few days/weeks/months we'll have huge problems.
The alternative right now seems to be either leave it and see what damage happens, knowing that something, somewhere is wrong.
Or we get people in to look at it and possibly rip the bathroom out to fix it.

Consequently life is not the beautiful happy place it's meant to be. I'm increasingly becoming convinced that the house was built by two drunk monkeys.

Black Dog continues

And don't feel in the mood to blog about it.
Hence the reviews further up the page.....

It's back: return of Black Dog, Mother's Day weekend and more problems.....

Well that good mood didn't last that long did it?

Still up from getting the Carter tickets, we entered Mother's Day weekend with a trip into York (new Brownie uniform for Molly) and a nice mooch round the shops.
Next up it was a contrived set up by Molly suggesting Louise has a quick nap because she had a bit of a tummy ache earlier. Louise had obviously been preped ahead of this and agreed readily, knowing that we needed her out of the way for a bit of kitchen time.
We made Mother's Day cookies. Which are just normal cookies with a bit of icing on top. But lovingly made.

Then off to Pocklington's Chinese restaurant, recently reopened after the June floods. And a great meal it was, made all the better as it was a complete surprise to Louise. Amazingly, Molly had managed to keep it totally secret, almost unheard of for her. Normally she'd spend all week asking Louise if she thought it was time to visit the Chinese again, or what sort of food she'd want if we went out for a meal on the weekend. But not this time.

So far, so good. But at some point on Saturday I went out into the back garden and noticed the downpipe from the shower outlet was leaking. Again. This happened a while back and was fixed then. Unfortunately it's started again. The main problem is that if it's anything more than a leaking valve just where the pipe leaves the wall, it becomes a huge job. Because the builders, bless them, decided to put the shower drain pipe under the floor. So if there's something wrong with the pipe further in, it's time to rip the bathroom out to find the problem.

Of course, Louise, as usual, is the voice of reason in all this. We've got the plumbers coming in on Monday, there's no evidence at all that it's anything more than a leaky seal and it just needs fixing. No problem, no property damage and no need at all to worry.

But that's just not my way is it?
To be honest it's difficult, not to mention rather embaressing, to try to describe how ridiculous the thoughts and feelings I have in times like these. The truth is that I'm fully aware of how stupid I'm being. I know how silly it is to get so affected by something that is, in most likelihood, just a minor problem.

But as soon as something like this happens, my mind seems to plunge back into all too familiar patterns. I tense up, stress overwhelms me and I feel desperately overwhelmed with despair and frustration, incapable of using logical, reasoned thought and just retreat into depression.

So that was Saturday. Sunday was spent in a down mood. Not particularly bad, just that horrible grey mood that washes everything out. Despite that, Mothering Sunday was a great day.

And then today.
Work was okay. We had the people coming to look at the downpipe this afternoon and Louise was home to report that they did a good job and they seemed confident that it was all fixed now.

But it's never that easy. We just went out and there's a tiny drip of water coming out from where they've just sealed it.

That simple little, insignificant little bit of water has just sent me all the way back down again. I'm now convinced it's something more serious, convinced there's a problem that will involve ripping away floors, ceilings and bathrooms, convinced everything is wrong. Life just feels a bit shit tonight.

Black Dog - a summing up - for now.

This is the final Black Dog post for now, promise. Like I've said previously, I'm feeling much better now.
But this was a perfect summing up of the mood, courtesy Monstro Draw (click link for more):

I promise normal service shall be resumed now. For how long? No idea. That's the fun thing about the melancholy thingy, it can strike at any time. No doubt I shall bore you with it some more soon.

Black Dog & Blogging excuses #3 What set the bout of melancholy this time?

Okay, so I've just come out of the latest god-awful fit of melancholy. (It's my phrase. I'm happy using it. I know it's a delusional statement. I know it's putting an easy, harmless label on it. I don't care. Melancholy it is.)

It all started with a few things going wrong with the house. Then I had the misfortune to go up into the attic and see water coming in through some of the brickwork up there. Obviously, me being the terrible pessimist that I am, I went straight to a worst case scenario and decided that not only was there something wrong with the main wall of the house, the chimney stack was also suspect and I just descended into what I still insist on calling "a fit of melancholia".

We've had small roof problems for a while now, it started last February with a couple of damp patches in Molly's ceiling. Instant panic hit and we got the builders in to look at it and then we got the roofers in as well. Of course, we're covered by the NHBC home insurance guarantee for a new house but that didn't really reassure me, neither did it stop me stressing over the trouble we had actually getting the builder to respond to phone calls.
But eventually, after a few roofer visits it was, seemingly sorted. One leak was due to a nail puncturing the membrane of the roof lining and the other was due to the very porous brickwork required of the build.
(When these houses were put up, so we're told, the council demanded brickwork and features in keeping with the area, hence old style bricks and wooden windows. All very nice until the water starts to get in.)
Roofer came several times about the main leak and eventually sorted it by sealing the roof joins and flashings and applying a waterproof seal to the brickwork.

Or so we thought.
All was well until a few months ago when I discovered a tiny leak leak in the main roof where the gas flue vent goes. Nothing too bad again and the roofer and I agreed that it could be done in the New Year when the weather improves. To be honest, like Louise points out, most normal folks who just pop up into their roofs for the Christmas tree once a year would never have seen this. And it wouldn't have made an iota of difference to the house. It's just me. Once I knew there was something wrong with one bit of the roof I was instantly on the lookout for anything else.

Then I notice that the brickwork behind the decorative chimney in the main attic is leaching salts and some water in. And finally, on one of my regular checks to ensure that the attic above molly's room was really not leaking again, I discovered the water seeping in through the brickwork again.

What doesn't help in these cases is that I have no sense of reason, scale or seriousness to apply to house and DIY type problems because I'm so incompetent at these things. The smallest thing can make me think the walls and the roof are coming in. And this was just that sort of thing.

When the builder came round I think he finally realised what an incompetent, stressed out idiot he was dealing with and explained everything in great detail, emphasising how minor and fixable the problems were. Another sealant on the walls, check the flashings and seals round the chimney, more sealant on the chimney bricks, and all should be okay. The water coming in through the bricks in Molly's attic was due to the incredible amount of rain this winter. the bricks can't cope and what I'm seeing is the side part of the cavity tray where water is naturally channeled to the drip holes at the front of the roof. All it will take is someone to seal the sides of the brick, create a lip on the drip trays and all will be well.
When he said it I immediately felt a weight lift from my being.

All was right with the world again.
The inside work has been done and we're waiting for the bricks to dry a little more before the roofers come round to apply final seals.
Of course, I'll be up and down the attic ladders near continuously onc it starts raining again, checking for every little thing and hoping, desperately that all really is well.

Perhaps the whole thing is best illustrated by this little exchange that Louise and I had just before the builder came in:

Louise: "what's the worst that could happen?"

Me: "the water could keep coming in, they never find a fault, and have to keep trying increasingly pointless things, the wall gets completely saturated, the chimney is weakened, comes plummeting down through the house, and we live with one end of the house wrapped in a tarpaulin sheet for a month whilst the builder goes out of business and we try to get insurance out of the bank before we can get the repairs done."

Louise: (deep breath) "okay....."