I'm just thoroughly exhausted right now.

Terry rang me at just after 08:00 to make sure that I was awake - he was just setting out. And it was 20:10 when I came back into the house this evening.

This roof that we are fixing is turning out to be a right horror story. We've been cutting out the side beams today and fixing extensions to them so that we can make an overhang to stop the water penetrating into the roof. At least we were - until we discovered that the principal beam had rotted away. It's full of insect holes - and I mean the real galleries rather than plain ordinary and common-or-garden woodworm but at the outside end there was simply nothing at all to inspect.

So we ended up having to take a 4.5 metre beam, cut a load of lets into it for the chevrons to fit into, then drag it up the scaffolding on the ladder, fit it under the roof, turn and pivot it into position, hold it up while we made a few adjustments, whack it in with a hammer and then cut some stud-iron into long bolt-shaped pieces to bolt everything together. And all of that into an attic where the OUTSIDE temperature was 35°C. God knows what the temperature was inside that roof and I have never sweated so much in all my life.

This roof is all thoroughly rotten and the only reason it's still standing up is because the woodworm are all holding hands in the beams. If they let go then we will all be goosed. Looking under the eaves you can see that the chevrons are just crumbling away. Patching it up is a major mistake because what will then happen is that in the first strong gale or heavy snowfall all of the strains and stresses in the roof will come hard up against the solid wood that has been fitted, the flexing will stop dramatically and all of the old wood will just shear off. The only solution really is to strip the whole lot off - every last piece - and start from scratch but for that you will get no change out of €20,000.

It's comforting me quite a lot actually because I had always thought of my house as being something of a ruin. Yet compared to a few houses that I've seen just recently it's in comparatively good condition all things being considered.

And another thing too - seeing the conditions in which a few other nouveaux arrivants are living, then my aspirations for my house and the long-term plans I have for it will make it into something quite luxurious. At the moment things aren't so hot (although my attic is quite a little palace comparatively-speaking) but I'm ripping up and discarding, without any hesitation at all, some situations that others are finding to be quite acceptable. I suppose that I really DO have some expensive tastes after all. What with one thing and another, all of this is cheering me up!

But once that had finished I did some more work on my guttering and water filters and they are all sealed up. Heavy rain is forecast for tomorrow and I need to catch all of the rain that I can.

And in other news, I've been severely critical in the past about TNS - or The New Saints - or They've No Support - a football team in the Welsh Premier League that is in many respects just one man's ambition and is hawked around from town to town in North-East Wales. The club qualified for European competition (the Champions' League in fact) at the end of last season and tonight they thrashed Bohemians of Ireland 4-0 to reach the 3rd Qualifying Round and a match against Anderlecht of Belgium. So good luck to them from a long-time critic.