Raising the roof!

I did not sleep very well strange because I felt perfectly comfortable under the net. We went to bed about 11ish. The first time I looked at the clock it was midnight, then 1.30, then 3.30 and the next thing I remember it was 6.00 and light. The frogs had been quite loud during the first part of the night but quietened down in the early hours of the morning. How civic minded!I heard no other strange noises, as I have on many occasions before, and put it down to the marvellous sonic repellers we got last year. It turned out, however, that they had not been on. Will had switched them off before getting in bed.There was a bird fluttering around in the house but as soon as I got up to open the front door it flew out of a tiny gap by the back door. It came back in again later. It must have been used to doing it while the house was empty and knew there was always a good supply of bugs hanging trapped in the cobwebs on the ceiling.We had no set plan for the day. We got the gas fridge going and I started to do some more cleaning. The flow of water coming out of the tap in the house is not very strong and when the tap is at a certain angle you can hear it pouring out of the overflow pipe on the roof. I went out to look and said to Will that I couldn’t see where the water was going. It didn’t appear to be running off the roof and into the gutter and I was worried it was running into the wall. Will went up to have a look. It did eventually flow off the roof. It was just taking its time.We looked at the side of the house where the worst of the water damage was. A few years back we had raised the corrugated iron on that side so that rain water would flow off the roof but with the continued collapse the roof was now lower nearer the wall and so rain water flowed onto the wall. Will decided we should raise it even further so went off to cut some posts while I did a little more cosmetic enhancement in the kitchen.After awhile he came back for me and we went to collect the posts he had cut, and so the repair job began. It was not easy. We had to remove the raising blocks we had added a few years ago and had to get at some awkward screws to release the strut on which the corrugated iron was fastened, free of the verandah roof beams. There was a pile of junk in the way which needed to be cleared. We did this carefully just in case it was a King Brown palace! We saw no snakes but a couple of centipedes, spiders, termites and ants of various sizes.We ended up with various posts leaning at different angles holding the roof strut up. It did the job we wanted but looked a bit untidy.The worst bit was the north eastern corner. We removed a cupboard that was against it and found strange mushrooms growing out of the wall behind it. Will had the great idea of using the car jack to raise the roof struts here and then we cut a post to fit exactly under it. It worked really well and the post was vertical. We decided to go back and refit all the other posts this way.After much effort we were finally happy with how it all looked and are sure now that rain water will flow away from the crumbling walls, that is, if it is gentle rain...a storm might be another matter.It was 2.30pm and we had not stopped to have any breakfast or lunch. We had open air showers and then drove into Stanthorpe to get some shopping.We came back and went for an evening walk out to another rocky escarpment on the property. We came upon a blue tarpaulin all bundled up. Will prodded it and was sure there was something inside. I wasn’t sure what we were going to find but hoped it was not grisly. In the end it just turned out to be a tarpaulin but we noticed a wire between two trees and Will thought someone had been camping there.More intruders!?We walked back to the house, steak, chips and salad for tea.I think we deserve it!