Counting sheep has been abandoned as sleep inducement. I have
replaced it by self-hynosis and deep breathing....flat on your back,
start by relaxing the toes, go up the leg, etc etc. This sometimes
works. Counting sheep now just reminds me of things I have not yet
done, such as getting their ear-tags, or filling in forms, hardly
sleep inducing. Last Friday no sleep magic would work as the roof was
hammered by a mega hailstorm. Seriously large hailstones hit our
aged roof tiles so badly that I had to take a torch and change the
bucket under the official leak.
An official leak is one of which I am aware and for which I have not
yet summoned a roof tiler. It is almost a superstition with me now:
keep one roof leak and you will not have many scattered ones. We
have been here so long that our roof will have to be re-done a
second time which, for me, is seriously weird. As someone who comes
from rainy countries I expect a roof to keep out rain, hailstones and
other undesirable features of the climate. Never having lived
anywhere longer than five years – before La Chaise – I am not
used to replacing things such as roofs, never mind replacing them
twice. Nor am I used to the attitude whereby you – or rather a
handy-man who does not suffer from vertigo – goes up on the roof to
temporarily re-jiggle the tiles until the next proper replacement
falls due.
For us, that time has come. Fortunately roofing practice has
advanced greatly since we had our first two roofs installed – the
original and its replacement. To start with it has been conceded
that there is really no excuse for roofs to let rain in, that there
are methods for stopping the rain coming in. The fact that some of
these methods are from outside the Dordogne, indeed possibly even
from outside France, no longer devalues them. So shortly I shall
have the joy of summoning various roofing contractors to ask for
estimates. I shall be scolded, tutted over, told I should have done
it x years ago – indeed should have done it differently in the
first and second place. But that is an expert's privilege.
Meanwhile the hailstorm has totally done for the cherries. All those
not already damaged by unseasonal frost, or intermittent heavy rains,
or greedy birds, are now on the ground. It has also battered the
roses which are looking quite bedraggled, especially the prolific
climbers on the garden fence and gate. Already their flower heads
had dragged them down, now they are totally beaten down, beyond
repair by pruning.
Fortunately, the red rose hedge round the Farmhouse and the pool
garden, with its intervening lavender bushes, has resisted superbly.
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