It never rains but it pours

As the old saying goes. Except it isn't supposed to pour in your apartment. Oh, no - I checked thoroughly and according to my Big Book of Weather rain is principally meant to be an outdoors phenomenon. So why was it raining in Joe's bathroom this morning?

Literally stepping out my door to go to work this morning and I pause - I can hear water dripping. Perhaps it is the noise of the rain shower hitting the stairwell skylight? Ah, there is actually water dripping in around the shared stairwell skylight for my tenement block... And the noise is closer than that. Open door to loo and am faced not with a leak or a drip but a smegging deluge. It was pouring down from many angle through the wee hatch in the ceiling which lets you into the water tank.

Cue frantic rush for buckets, basins, old paint tins etc, all to the great enjoyment of the cats who found it all highly entertaining and tried to assist by running in and out between my legs. My neighbour in the flat directly below has it running into his home too. No answer from the neighbour directly above me (on the top floor). Neighbour opposite has no problem but does recall reporting the leaky skylight weeks ago to the housing association who own much of the block (not my home though). This does not make me feel better realising they hadn't bothered to check the roof and as such left my home vulnerable to a frigging indoor monsoon.

So I had to remain at home until the maintenance bloke came out and had a nice friendly look over everything before declaring they would need a roofing person. Well, of course they would. Fine. Hours later another visit - again very friendly chaps who also come to the conclusion a roofing person if needed, but of course it is too late for today now. So hopefully there won't be any rain tonight, but as I live in Scotland I'm not holding my breath... Then discover the neighbour in the flat above me has actually passed away during the night (not by drowning before anyone says it). Bit of a shock, especially since I was just chatting to said neighbour the day before...

Fortunately I am able to do a lot of work from home if I need to, although I prefer being in the branch, so I could get on with stuff at home while waiting for the engineers to come and take a look and the day wasn't wasted (some good stuff up on the FPI blog to promote the BSFA and Arthur C Clarke awards, which is great). Equally fortunate my boss understood and was fine with me working from home for the day. Still, all in all it was a bit of a bum day really, although looking on the bright side, if the deluge had happened ten minutes earlier I would have been sitting on the throne, deep in my morning meditation in that sacred space. The thought of the rain pouring in on my head as I throw down the newspaper and run around with my trousers about my ankles is not the best image, although it is improved if you mentally add the Benny Hill music to it...

...on the up side I've just had a call from Melanie who is delighted to treat her chums to curry this very evening out of her whopping big MegaBank company bonus. Hmmm, curry and beer - let's hope the loo isn't under water later on, I may need it...