The Tale of Messrs Young and Stupid

A couple of people have asked how the kitchen ceiling saga went, so here goes.

Back in the '70's when we were first married we lived in a small, very old bungalow (single storey house), pretty much as we do now. The kitchen had been built on along with a bathroom and had a flat roof covered with roofing felt and ballast. The summer had been very hot until it started to rain before we went on holiday (well it would!) and the roofing felt cracked - I suppose it was quite old too - letting in the rain. So there we were when we came home with a ceiling dripping water and a thunderstorm going on outside and, speaking for myself, sheer blind panic!

I think our brains must have been left in the car when it was stolen because we just went off to bed after putting out all the buckets we could find in a vain attempt to catch the water. There was electricity in there for goodness sake! Apparently what we should have done was turn off the power and bash a hole in the ceiling so that the water had a large means of escape. Instead, it just pooled up there while its turn came to get through a hole, thus making the plasterboard and plaster soggy and heavy and causing it to fall down.

You're exactly right Marcy, new roofs and ceilings are not something you usually budget for! We did have what we call "Bricks and mortar" insurance which should have covered it as storm damage. Don't ask me why we never made a claim but we didn't. Young and stupid I guess. Keith put up a new ceiling and his brother repaired the roof as a temporary measure and I rang an architect to come and draw up plans for a whole new extension and knock that one down. This had always been our intention but it happened a bit sooner though we would have saved ourselves a lot of money if we had only made an insurance claim. And that's what happened, we had a new kitchen built..........

BUT MEANWHILE..........

While we were waiting for the wheels of burocracy in the guise of the local planning office, to grind slowly on (as they do) I set fire to the place! It was an accident, honest.

I was melting some fat in the chip pan to pour it away one sunny Sunday morning about 6 weeks later when I decided it was time Keith joined the waking world. Off I went to wake him up, leaving the pan on the stove and, of course, it did what unattended pans will do!

When I realised what the 'funny smell' was I flew through to the kitchen, Keith hot on my heels. Never mind covering the blazing pan with a damp cloth like they tell you to, he grabbed the pan handle with a towel and flung the whole lot out the back door, narrowly missing the milkman who was calling to be paid! Remember this, Keth had just jumped out of bed. He was starkers. Oh my, you couldn't have written that script!

This wasn't the doggy; he was a doberman puppy

That's when we noticed the dog was missing. Oh Lord, where's the dog, where's the dog. Guess where he turned up at? At the back of the cupboard under the kitchen sink where he had snuck cos he was scared. Then he couldn't get out cos the door was shut!

AND STILL we never made an insurance claim!!

The builders were due to start a week later so we put the dog in kennels and went to live with mum for 6 weeks. If it was now I wouldn't want to live in that house any more - would you?

So there's a silly story of Messrs Young and Stupid!

Until next time, xxx