Weekly Rundown: The Bathroom Saga

We’ve been having some bathroom issues this week. No, nothing quite like that. Just that the shower appeared to come to the decision to drain via our kitchen ceiling!

We had this problem a couple of times before, about 18 months ago, when we had to get get sealant put around the bath to stop the damp patch that had appeared on the kitchen ceiling. Luckily our landlord is fantastic and both times sent someone out to deal with the job. On the last occasion I mentioned that when we turned the shower on there seemed to be a small trickle of water running out the bottom, I was reassured that this was nothing, and after all, it was a teeny tiny trickle so we ignored it.

There were no more puddles on the bathroom floor, so the sealant obviously did the trick and the damp patch on the kitchen ceiling dried up. All was right in the world again.

Until a couple of weeks ago.

I couldn’t help but notice that the mark on the ceiling from the last leaky shower incident seemed to be more visible. I pointed this out to Mr Click but we decided that it was the same mark as before, that maybe the light was making it look different. As we usually have showers and go straight to bed, there’s not much time for kitchen-ceiling gazing in between times. There were a couple of times when I jumped into the kitchen to try and catch the damp patch looking, well, damper. It was sneaky and never did.

Until I noticed that it had brought a friend along who was hanging out directly underneath the far corner of the bath. This was definitely a new damp patch. So once again the plumber was called out.

And he spent about half a day hanging out in our bathroom, dismantling things, drying things out, putting things back together, scraping bits off and resealing other parts. Turns out that teeny tiny trickle (which had become more than just a teeny tiny trickle over the last few weeks) was also trickling down the inside of the wall and coming out into the kitchen ceiling.

The next morning we decided to tackle the funky mark on the ceiling but managed to brush off a piece of paint and found a hole where it came off. Another call to the big house which was swiftly followed by another visit from the plumber who had received a message about our kitchen ceiling falling in. Luckily this is not the case and rather than rebuilding our kitchen we just need a bit of filler and a lick of paint.

Suffice to say everything is now pretty much dried out and there have been no more leaky bits this week.

We’ve also been having a bit of a belated spring clean at home. We cleared out two cupboards in the kitchen to make a box to go to charity – we’ve had a ‘junk cupboard’ in the kitchen since we moved in, most of the things in it haven’t been used in the intervening three years so the time has come to make way for things we actually want to keep in it. Like food.

I’ve also finally gotten around to listing loads of things on eBay. I’ve been hanging onto my OU books from my last couple of courses. The Reading and Studying Literature books because I might have wanted to refer back to them whilst doing Children’s Literature, and the Children’s Literature ones because it seemed a bit premature to get rid of them before I had my results in. Well, it’s been a few months so the time has come to wave goodbye.

It was actually quite interesting listing them all. I’d forgotten I’d studied some of the texts! I don’t really mind what they go for, but I’m hoping to put whatever I get from them towards Christmas, because it’s not long to go now. I’ve already bought Mr Click’s present as well as a couple of other little gifts. Let’s hope I can stay ahead of it all.

In other news, I’m still reading The Three Musketeers. I’m enjoying it, but since I switched my Kindle screen to white text on a black background I keep dozing off while I’m reading. I should finish it this week and then I’ll be going onto Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. TV-wise, we’ve started watching Ripper Street and I’m enjoying it so far. I do have to admit I’m missing Criminal Minds a bit. I’m looking forward to rewatching that already!

And this week? Well, we’ve got to reorganise the spare bedroom (which is currently full of things that should be in the upstairs cupboard but which I’d left out in order to reach the OU books I wanted to eBay) and I’ve got even more books to get listed as well. It’s going to be another busy one.