Sunday

Another week has gone by - mostly spent working and wondering how to keep a roof over my head, not just for financial reasons - but the elements have been playing their part - mother nature giving Hastings and my house a good hard kicking.

Today is all calm, sunshine and quiet, it's almost sinister. Every day this week has been gale force winds, heavy rain and hail - lightening storms and sonic boom thunder, and more and more bits of my house falling off. Water is coming in through several places and I STILL have 5 days to wait for the insurance assessor to come. I shall be spending today taking down part of the dry lining in the dining room to let water out (it's coming out through the door frames) and finishing removal of the landing ceiling. I'll also be taking down more of the kitchen roof and trying to patch it with black plastic in an attempt to make it watertight until the weekend.

The main job I'm working on is for a company producing licensed character art for a girls wear range - it's in stark contrast to my home life - which is dark and very grim. Another unexpected problem is that the rain has washed all the soil away in my garden, leaving me with just clay. I know there are people much worse of than me - but keeping calm and carrying on is really wearing thin. One good thing, I suppose - the measures I took last year to remove and prevent damp from below ground level seem to be working - so I'm only being attacked from above, and not below.

The washing machine is still broken - not that there was any chance it would magically fix itself - and I can't afford another at the moment, and my glasses are still held together with tape - I'm really stressing about the insurance trying to pull the 'wear and tear' thing - 6 weeks of gales and rain have made the back of the house look like it's been empty for years - it's turned black from the mold and all the render is falling away because so much water had been forced in, brickwork and flashing blown away and all the fences smashed - except next doors - and only because I have propped them with timber.

I'd like to think of something more cheerful to say - but I can. A friend has been shafted by a business partner - don't really want to think about that one, and several friends who have businesses in town are looking at throwing the towel in because there has been no tourist trade whatsoever since Xmas - thanks to the weather. Everyone seems ill, tired, depressed and angry (although - I can at least say - I'm feeling quite fit and have not even had a cold for at least a year ), so I kinda thought nobody would be very interested in anything I had to say - getting from day to day at the moment requires huge mental and emotional resources and I'm trying to stay focussed.

I was going to end this on a bright note... but I can't think of anything.