Heavy Weather

I am sitting here, along with a few million other people in the south of England, bathed in gentle sunshine and waiting for the deluge of rain that is forecast to drop on us tonight - three inches in a few hours, followed by destructively high winds, apparently.

I quite like extreme weather, just so long as the roof holds out. We have quite a new roof, with very well made lead work and new slates, but the design is 18th century Georgian, and - unlike the Victorians - the Georgians were crap builders. Bath is all a facade - the Georgians cared more for external appearances than sound functionality, and our roof is a prime example of their vanity.

We live in the top two floors of the sixth house on a terraced street which slopes gently - almost imperceptibly - downwards toward the river and past us. The construction of our double-pitched roof entails two lead parapet gutters front and back, which take the rain that falls onto the single pitches on both sides. More importantly, there is a centre 'valley' gutter - also of lead, and in the middle of that, there is a small hole (about 4 inches across) which leads to an open, lead gutter within the roof space and directly over Her Indoors' bedroom which discharges through a small hole on the back of the house, straight down the sloping slates and into the rear parapet gutter.

None of the other five houses above us have a little hole in their centre gutters, which means that we take on ALL the water which falls onto ALL the double pitches of ALL of the other five houses.

With light rainfall (and without a silly pigeon deciding to nest in the middle of our little hole) the uneven distribution of responsibility when it comes to disposing of rain water is hardly noticeable, but when it comes to weather conditions which would make a good back-drop for the reenactment of 'Noah's Ark', then we don't sleep so easily at night.

I realise that - when compared to what is happening in Pakistan right now - these are trivial worries about something that may never happen, but it has happened in the past and if you have ever been woken up at 3 o'clock in the morning by gallons of cold, dirty water cascading onto your duvet through a live, electrical, ceiling light-fitting, then you will know exactly what a rude awakening that is.

I had better go up on the roof and have a quiet word with the pigeons this afternoon... and the crows... and the gulls... and the jackdaws...