Fixes and Progress.
Well, I think I found the source of the leak. I did a few invasive inspections to find where the subfloor/roof was wet, rather than the water just running along the bottom of the joists in the ceiling of the bedroom. I found the spot, and it was directly under a badly weathered old dryer vent that isn’t – I don’t think – hooked up to anything anymore. Certainly not to the dryer.
The vent penetrates the wall in exactly the right spot, and is tilted the wrong way so that if water were to intrude, it would be sucked right down to where I’m seeing the problem. The window above is also a bit weathered and there are places it could leak. I’m having it all caulked and painted and what-have-you tomorrow. Then I have to get the ceiling repaired from the water damage and the invasive inspections I did. My guess is it’ll all be about a thousand bucks.
But the good news is that when I took it off the market, my agent told me that she had a bunch of plaintive inquiries as to why, and was there a chance I’m still accepting offers. One person may, apparently, still want to make one. So hopefully the house can be sold anyway, and soon. And I felt male and competent for a few minutes while sawing through drywall. So that was nice.
Fitness-wise is was a pretty damn good weekend. BB and I ran a hard 12.2 miles on Saturday morning in the cold. We kept up a very even 9:25 pace per mile. This despite a twinge I’m fighting in my left glute/hamstring. My feet felt good, my calves, my other leg, everything was clicking. If we can do that on a training run, then in three weeks we’ll be up for a fast half-marathon. I’m sure of it.
Will we break our 2 hours goal? Maybe. Maybe not. That doesn’t truly matter. All that matters is that we’re fit and excited and ready to go run like hell, and see what we can do.
Sunday we went to the gym and while BB was doing a hard 5K on the treadmill I decided to get on the rowing machine. I want to build up some upper body endurance, because I have it in my head that that will help with my “don’t get diabetes” plan. And it probably will, maybe not specifically, but generally. Fitness is good medicine. Then, after BB got back on her train, I rode 15 miles on my bike at a nice steady pace. I forgot my heart-rate monitor, but I wasn’t going hard. Steady 15 miles in 71 minutes.
So I’m making progress. I think. House, work, love, health, life. Things will be ok. Probably.
Infactorium 
When you fix something like that you get such a sense of satisfaction don’t you – well you do if you are like me.
A few weeks ago I was vacuuming in the music room. There is a small windowsill covered in paperweights and some other knick-knacks – like a bear in Gillingham FC colours my son bought me with his pocket money for father’s day so many years ago. You know the stuff you just can’t throw out. Anyway… it was all covered in dust and muck – I assumed from just where the window had been open. I cleared it off and hoovered up. Next week. It was all back but the window had hardly been open that week as it’d been cold. I went round this clear up, find it all messy again several times until I decided to truly investigate. Climbing up showed evidence of all this dust above the window on the curtain rail. Soon I realised that there was a small but discernible crack between the coving on the ceiling and the wall – way less than a mm but enough to allow all this rubbish in esp it seemed when we had strong winds. Caulking gun out and after only a few minutes it all looked neat. A month on – no repeat mess! I’m so alpha-male protecting my offspring (the bear, paperweights and guitars!) from this deadly (I exaggerate) threat.