This German weather is just unreal. After the unusual heat of the last months, it now seems like we're back to early April or something. It has been raining like mad for at least 48 hours. Days seem endless and I'm loosing any track of time. Outside everything seems to be under water, the wind is still unbelievable and every now and then the rain turns into heavy hail. Frightening but also fascinating.
I sit in my house and I actually have a fire on in the stove. What a strange summer, from one extreme to another. I came here after a neighbour phoned to say that my roof had been damaged. Slowly it feels like this house is just about to collapse right on top of me. Everything makes the strangest noises, squeaking and creaking like in an old horror movie. The storm has broken many roof tiles and now the rain is coming into the attic, seeping through the floorboards, drenching the bedroom ceiling. I put up a whole lot of buckets and a baby bath tub to catch the rain and hope this will do for the moment. I've already phoned the local roof tilers to have them take a look and hopefully repair the damage. They'll come over any time now, or so I hope, meanwhile I'm waiting, staring out into the rain, writing, listening to all the dripping, high and low.
It's such a melancholic mood outside, slow and tranquil, timeless. I like it and I dislike it at the same time. Looking out I wish I could be in the garden. I'm trying to sweet-talk the raingods into a short break but don't seem to be successfull in my attempts. Which means I have to go out and get wet, fetching more firewood from the shed. I mean, it's not like it's really that cold in here, but it's damp and kind of chilly and anyway, I really like the noise of the sizzling fire, the crackling sound of the red-hot logs turning into charcoal, looking like they're breathing and alive.
This place might be cosy if it wasn't for the overall condition of the house. It's in a really bad state. Nobody I know would want to stay here and still I like it. I have this dream of restoring it, making it a more welcoming and friendly place. Which it unfortunately isn't by any means right now.
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Well, the roof guy left and I've been walking through the house like a ghost, talking to myself, for the last half hour or so. I'm still kind of paralyzed by what he told me and can't think straight. I guess this might be one of the rare occasions where I feel like making a phone call to get rid of the tangle of words inside my head, but since I do not have a phone here and don't actually feel like walking all the way up to my aunt's place, this will just have to do.
Looks like it's been an absurd idea, assuming I'll ever manage to maintain this ruin of a house. As usual I seem to have been too naive, carried away by wishful thinking. I wasn't aware of how soon the condition of the house might get worse and how much money it takes to mend things.
The roof guy was pretty shocked too, but unfortunately not by the damage caused by the storm. He said that were minor repairs compared to the overall condition of the roof. The worst thing seems to be that the roof is so derelict that it's probably impossible to repair the new damage without causing the rest of the roof to come down. The tiles are too old and the wood construction is partly rotten so they will not take the risk of walking around on it. I asked him about the costs for all necessary repairs but he said he couldn't be precise without a carpenter inspecting the beams and laths first, that it was hard to say how much of the wood needed to be replaced. He would estimate the costs to be between 5.000 and 8.000 Euros if the roof truss was more or less o.k and didn't need complete renewal, which might easily double the costs. What he actually said was that I was "lucky" the roof is rather small, which would keep the price within reasonable limits. Reasonable limits, talking of five to eight thousand Euros! I really had to swallow hard. If I didn't have this slight dislike of booze, I guess I might have just drowned the whole problem in alcohol. Instead I grabbed a chocolate bar (sure sign of panic) and started wandering up and down the house after the roof tiler left. And here I am now. Wondering about the fact that there are actually people out there who wouldn't find this in any way threatening. They'd probably be vexed for a moment, then make an appointment to have it fixed. Just like that.
Oh what a start into the weekend.
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