Devastation

 The village of Creeslough in Co Donegal is devastated this morning after a shocking tragedy yesterday afternoon. At about 3:30, an explosion blew apart a building that housed the post office, a small local grocery store/ deli and the apartments that were above them. There is a filling station out front. So far there are 9 people who have lost their lives, but that number is expected to grow. Many are missing and they are now engaging in a search and recovery operation after having worked through the night to try to reach anyone who might be trapped. People were waiting outside all night for news and to support one another. All of Donegal seems to be reeling today and the rest of the country is shocked as well. But the devastation in Creeslough cannot be overstated. It's a community of just under 400 people and that location was a hub, especially on a Friday afternoon. Kids would go into the shop after school to get munchies or something from the deli. People would run in for last minute purchases before the weekend. People would be using the post office and picking up their pension payments. It's on the outskirts of the village and is really the only place to do these things. It's a tiny place.

It is a lovely village. A few years ago, we spent 5 days glamping right across the street from the shop. I loved it so when a place became available to rent there last year when we were looking, we jumped on it. We were in the process of moving to a place a two-or three-minute walk from there, but when we saw the lease we felt the landlord was not to be trusted so we declined to rent it. 

It is heartbreaking to think about the grief and suffering happening there right now. In a community that small, everyone is affected. Added to all the personal loss is the loss of a community space that was at the heart of the village. My heart goes out to everyone there. 

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What Is and What Was

 Bill called the management office this morning to tell them about the dripping. The woman told him that she'd call the landlord and would call Bill back. The landlord called and seemed none too pleased about the fact that the leak wasn't fixed. He said he would try to get someone out tomorrow, but if they wouldn't/couldn't do tomorrow, then Monday. He apologized and said, 'I'll do my best for ya.' We are happy with his response and the promptness of it. We know that this isn't his fault and that he sent someone out quickly to take care of the problem. This makes sense, since it's his property being damaged by the water. The fact that the job wasn't sufficiently completed isn't down to him. This is one more reason we are happy to be renting. If this was my house, I would be the one trying to get people to come and fix things and would just have to hope they did it properly. When they didn't, I would have to spend time trying to get them to come back.This is not something I would be confident about, ever. The alternative, I suppose, would be to become a DIY sort of gal. No. It's not my jam. I much prefer renting. I'm happy to pay someone else to provide me with shelter, furniture, dishes, silverware, etc and to deal with these kinds of issues.

Later in the day, the management office called just to follow up and make sure someone had contacted us and that things were moving towards a solution. This is quite a contrast to a previous experience where any reports of problems were going out into a black hole with the property manager and may or may not have ever gotten to the owner, who wasn't keen to spend money on the place in any case. After we left he tried his luck with AirBnB. The reviews were brutal. He seemed to think he could give people the keys and they'd give him lots of cash and all would be well. Hasn't worked out for him.

So we are pleased with how quickly people have responded. It has just started raining again. If the drips return, we're ready. We moved the chair and books last night and the containers are in place. It's supposed to be dry tomorrow, but heavy rain again Sunday so we'll just leave everything as it is.

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Not So Fast!

 Well, we thought the roof issue was fixed. There was no dripping at all yesterday and through today. We put everything back this afternoon. Plenty of rain today, but all seemed OK, until at 10 tonight, drip, drip,drip again. ☹️ Another call to the management office in the morning. Sigh.

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Fingers Crossed!

 Last night the rain continued and the dripping resumed. We moved a chair, a bunch of books, and a few other things. I emptied out a few containers and lined them up under the drips. After a while the rain slowed then stopped and the dripping followed suit. Even when we had some heavy showers after that, there was no more dripping, but we left everything in place just in case.

The roof guys showed up this morning. They went around outside and stood there looking and frowning for several minutes. I think they were figuring out how best to get to the roof--they had to get over some roofed storage areas at ground level to get to our roof and there's not that much ground between us and the river. After a while another guy came with a very long ladder. It was raining off and on and some of the showers were heavy. We heard the guy on the roof. I was thinking that the slate must be slippery. After some thumping and banging, he came in just to have a look at where the drips had been happening. He said, 'There were some cracked slates up there and they were right in line with the drips. And that was that. It has rained since but no sign of dripping. We decided to leave the containers there for tonight just in case, but hopefully the problem is solved now.

photo by bill burke

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Puddles Don't Belong Here

 Last night we went to bed at 2-ish. It was lashing down rain and the wind was blowing harder than it has since we got here. It had been that way for most of the day. We were glad the trees outside the wee conservatory have been trimmed. They had been touching the windows. This morning, when we got up a bit after 9, Bill exclaimed, 'What's this water from?' There was a puddle on the living room floor. It was pretty contained in one place. I got a torch to look closely at the ceiling. There is a crack running from the door to the other wall--looks like a line where two pieces of wood/sheetrock, or whatever it is they use on ceilings meet (I am not a DIY person at all, so if there is a name for this, I have no idea what it is). There is tape along the space, looks like, and it's all been painted over. I assumed the drip must've come from there, but I didn't see any wet spots. It did look like there is some bubbling along the tape line that I don't remember being there before, but it could be that it was there and I didn't notice. There was no more dripping at that point.

I went to take a shower and Bill cleaned up the puddle, called the management office, and got dressed. A short time later, there was a knock on the door. Three guys were there wanting to know about the leak. I showed them where the water had been. One of them immediately said, 'It's the V-spot.' They said there was nothing they could do today because they 'didn't have ladders and stuff' but they'd be back tomorrow. Usually when someone says something like that I believe it when I see it, but I am cautiously optimistic in this instance. These guys are working for the owner, refurbishing an apartment in a neighbouring building. I suspect they've done work in here before, too.

This afternoon, we took a stroll down to the charity shop where our streak remains intact. We have never gone into that place and left without one or more books. It was three today. But on the way out and the way back, I looked up and saw what he meant about the 'V-spot.' There is an entryway that is mostly windows with a peaked clear roof. From the outside, we can see that this is sort of attached to the structure with some kind of black stuff. It seems like perhaps the wind blew the rain in a space that exists in this connection. So they will probably come and seal it up better--this is a guess on my part. 

It's raining again, but there's no wind so hopefully there will be no more puddles inside. I am so glad to not be responsible for this kind of thing, other than to tell the appropriate people that there's a problem and what the problem is. Far less stress than when we owned instead of renting. I much prefer the latter!

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Victober 2022

 I discovered Booktube a couple years ago and from that was introduced to Victober--a month devoted to discovering, reading, and discussing Victorian literature. I listened to some videos with interest these past couple years, but this year I decided to participate so joined Goodreads and the group discussion there.

Each year there is a group read and some challenges/prompts. People participate in all, some, or none of these as they wish and read as many and whichever Victober books/poems/stories/plays strike their fancy.

This year the group read is Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy. I've not read any Hardy and suspect he is the sort of author I would have to be in the right mood for as he is apparently depressing. I won't be taking part in the group read this year.

I will definitely read some things for a couple of the prompts/challenges while the others are maybes. They are to read something from the Victorian era in the following categories: a poem, a short story, a coming-of-age story, a novel in which one of the characters has an illness or disability, and a novel that has a film or TV adaptation to watch.

Things are loose for my TBR right now, but two I definitely plan to read are Weird Women: Volume 2: 1840-1925: Classic Supernatural Fiction by Groundbreaking Female Writers, edited by Lisa Morton and Leslie S. Klinger (short stories prompt), in which 10 of  the 16 stories are Victorian. 

Bill got me Volume 1 a couple years ago and I loved it. I recently discovered that there is a Volume 2, so he got it for me from an indie bookstore in Galway. I happened to finish a library book yesterday, the first day of Victober--The Face in the Glass: The Gothic Tales of Mary Elizabeth Braddon--so technically I am done with this prompt, but I love short stories, so I'm happy to continue.

Today I started Trail of the Serpent by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (chronic illness/disability prompt).  

I might read North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell and/or John Halifax, Gentleman by Dinah Mulock Craik--not sure if either of those would be coming of age novels, although I think they would fit in with the illness/disability prompt. I have learned from experience not to look too deeply into plot descriptions for classics because there are often spoilers really give away major plot points. A couple of years ago, I read a classic after reading the back cover. It was not until I got to the last few pages and the main character learned something that everything hinged on that I realized it was supposed to be a surprise for the reader, too. But it was stated on the back cover, so I read the entire several hundred pages knowing what I was not supposed to know. My experience of the book would have been much better had I not known. So now I don't read the back covers or introductions until after I've read the books. 

I might read some Oscar Wilde poetry or Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (which is a long coming-of-age poem)--not sure. 

I don't enjoy watching things so won't be taking part in that challenge, although I might read a book and listen to a radio adaptation instead. It will depend on how much time I have and what I feel like doing later in the month. Also what my library has available in the e-audiobook section of the website, where there are a few Victorian radio dramas from BBC. 

I've also been wanting to start a re-read of Anthony Trollope's Palliser series, so might pick up Can You Forgive Her? 

Some of these books are ones I own and some are on my e-reader from Project Gutenberg, which is a really great place to try out authors from an earlier time. I have discovered authors I'd never heard of (like Dinah Mulock Craik) and now love from booktube and have been able to click over to Project Gutenberg and get some of their work. I've been on a big classics kick for a couple years now and I'm thrilled that I have so many new-to-me authors still to discover.

Happy reading, everyone!

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Shades

 Today has been a mix of bright sunny spells and lashing down rain with some cloudy bits in between. Earlier, I was sitting with my tea and doing some simple sewing at our dining table in the small conservatory. When I went in, it was cloudy and pleasant. I sat and listened to the river flow by as I worked--it rained hard the other night and at times yesterday so it's running high and fast. Then the sun came out. It was getting warm. The sun was bothering my eyes and I had to grab my sunglasses. I've been putting them on and taking them off all day and we haven't even gone outside! It is so bright when the sun is out and gets warm quickly. There are blinds on all the windows in there, but I like to be able to see out. We do keep them down on the three windows on one side because when the sun is out, it beams in through those for hours. I've realized that the space will be unusable in summer as far as sitting in there goes--I will keep the doors closed. But I think I will probably use it as a greenhouse and try to grow some tomatoes in a pot or two. They don't grow well outdoors here, but are great in a polytunnel. I don't have one of those, but this should work just as well, especially with the long hours of daylight. In the meantime, I will keep my sunglasses handy for the times when the sun is shining. We're getting into the time of year where that's not as much of a thing, and there won't be as much daylight in any case. At this moment, there's a bit of everything. The sun is shining on the trees, there's a black cloud above us, and the rain has started pattering on the roof. 

Happy October! 🎃

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