23rd September 2013

The sun had popped his hat on and beamed down cheerily until mid-afternoon, when a troupe of dark, brooding clouds shuffled onto the stage. David swore blind it would rain; I declared it wouldn’t; Banjo, zen master of the household, remained serenely indifferent. I was right, of course. (Not that I mentioned it more than half a dozen times.)

We kicked off with a lively symposium on rafter length, tile placement, guttering alignment, and the ridge tile’s eventual throne. Given that the house is about as square as a banana, welding a new roof to the old structure demanded care. One false move and we’d have a roof that looked fine in a drought but turned into Niagara Falls the moment it drizzled.

The Bulgarian “sensible” method would be to leave rafters overlength, then trim them mid-air with a chainsaw while perched fifteen metres up, whistling merrily. Tempting though the daredevil circus act sounded, we decided instead on the radical English notion of pre-cutting rafters to the right size on terra firma. A straight edge, after all, does wonders for guttering and nerves.

Once the chin-scratching subsided, we marked the top lat position for the ridge tile, then test-ran a row of tiles along two rafters. Miraculously, they behaved themselves. A quick online consultation confirmed we were within 2mm over a 2.56m span, with a whole centimetre of wiggle room to play with. Smug doesn’t begin to cover it. Chop saw set at a perfect 30-degree angle, we were off to the races.

The rest of the morning blurred into a rhythm of measure, chop, fit, repeat. Just as the rafters were marching obediently into place, Milen and his wife appeared bearing homemade Benitza for lunch. A kind and very welcome gesture, though we were in full “roof trance” mode, so polite gratitude was kept brief before we scurried back to our rafters.

By mid-afternoon, every rafter was snugly in place. David perfected the front-facing cuts at the apex while I shored up the middle beam against any flexing. Two exceedingly pleased Brits then descended the ladder, basking in the glory of straight lines and structural integrity.

Dinner was fried eggs with potato wedges so heavily seasoned they could’ve doubled as grit for the driveway. Tired but triumphant, we devoured the lot while discussing, heaven knows why, the state of music education in Rotherham. Watchless, clockless, and clueless as to the actual hour, we collapsed into bed with the smug satisfaction of a day well spent.