There is no guttering underneath a thatched roof.
Water droplets gather size and momentum as they roll down the slope and find their target, unerringly, down the back of your neck.
.
So much that I need to do outside yet the rain is still hurling down.
It’s no good even attempting it on days like this. Slithering about on the sodden clay would be frustrating enough. More likely it would be derriere over apex before I could even get a fork in the ground.
.
And excuses for avoiding the dusting have now officially run out..
Sadly no photos appeared with this post! But from your description it all sounds a bit grim – it is the same here. Hope it picks up as we are on hols next week – raincoats at the ready I think. Now get on with that dusting.
There should be one photo, although not of my wet neck.
According to the forecast this evening, it should pick up. Have a great holiday!
Dear Jessica – I love the way you have captured the droplets of rain dripping from your thatch. But do cheer up – temperatures of 20ā are zooming in tomorrow and continuing all weekend.
I hope so Rosemary, the weeds are loving all this rain!
I’m the same as you, the housework gets done when it’s raining! We are almost back to what we should be, housework wise, should have everything ship shape soon, just in time for more sun!! We have heavy rain at the moment, I’m just glad the garden will be enjoying it.
Getting there too.. three rooms left. š
We had a badly damaged drainpipe and guttering. Called roofer, he came and gave us estimate but not sure he could find cast iron materials to match existing and we are in conservation area so have to have. Never heard from him again – bad move as one of hubby’s pet hates. Decided to do it himself – but had to buy scaffolding tower (another piece of lads kit!) Found necessary pipe on ebay for Ā£40 not hundreds as thought. He did the task last Saturday and has scaffolding tower now of his own – price? less than estimate with added extra og his new tower!
Oh, I won’t show Mike, he’ll want one too. Another who has to have every piece of kit.. Sounds like the man did good though.
Soggy here too. Do you have access to a dog you could walk? That’s always fun in the rain, and also necessitates having to put off housework… š
Can you hire them? š
Its been fairly miserable here too, and yet the garden seems to love the rain and the weeds grow twice as fast! Typical!
Oh, I know. It’ll take days to catch up!
Lol…I try to avoid housework at all costs….I’ll even decorate first!xxxx
Now, that’s a good excuse.. have sander, wot’s the point?
I have spent my day off doing an Autumn blitz with my steam cleaner, so although il pleut mauvais ici en Kent it also got a bit soggy indoors, too! Squeaky clean now, but it won’t last long, not with all these furry cats around. Hang on to that promise of sun over the weekend!
Hats off. Le vin ici en Devon, bad for a week night. Hoping tomorrow will be a better day.
I sure wish we could get some of that wet stuff here. I love your comment about no more excuses to keep you from dusting. That’s me too! Except this time of year it’s the heat rather than rain that keeps me in. I hope you can get out soon. Blessings, Natalie
I will find any excuse Natalie, however limp!
Me too! Any excuse to get out of housework is a good one! Blessings, Natalie
It’s such an unrewarding task. Give it a day or two and it’ll need doing all over again!
It is definitely an unrewarding task and the dust does not take long to settle back in. Now in the garden, that kind of effort produces great beauty, is much more rewarding, and feeds the spirit. Hope your rains have stopped so you can get back outside and forget about the dusting. We finally got some much needed rain here, and as much as I’d like to be out in my gardn, I’m not going to complain one little bit. God is good, all is right with the world today, and I am so thankful for the rain. Blessings, Natalie
Oh I’m so glad you got some rain, at last! It’s been a long hot summer..
Thanks, Jessica. It has indeed been a long hot summer, but then it always is in Texas. Blessings, Natalie
You must be sufficiently inland to avoid hurricanes, but do you ever get tornados?
We live in north central Texas about 5 hours from the Gulf of Mexico so hurricane activity does affect us to some extent. Actually it’s usually at this time of year that a hurricane or hurricanes that move into the Gulf push off the high pressure dome that settles in over us during July and August and prevents the rain from from falling here during those months. That is exactly what has brought us the rain today. A hurricane moved into Mexico and the off spin of clouds and rain moved right up into Texas. Though the officials aren’t sure why, and they do happen periodically in this part of the world, we have been in the throes of a drought since 2008. It has affected many states but some worse than others. It hit Texas very hard and in many places entire lakes have or nearly have dried up. So we have been on water rationing for several summers. We can only water outside twice a week. But this last week they were even talking about lowering that to once a week. I’m not sure what impact this rain will have on that decisio. We got about three inches in the rain gauge in my backyard, but I don’t know if that will be enough to help the lakes. Probably more than you wanted to know, huh?! Blessings, Natalie
Sorry, I forgot to answer your question about tornados. Yes we usually have a heavy tornado season in the spring, but in the last couple of years it hasn’t been too bad. Not sure why. Natalie
Not too much information at all Natalie, weather fascinates me.
We complain (frequently!) about the weather in England but it is considerably less extreme than other parts of the world. As we get more rain though it becomes a problem as the land can’t absorb enough of it and rivers overflow, hence more floods. I wish we could spread it around the globe a bit more evenly!
And here I thought you had the perfect climate, but then I guess you’re right. Everywhere seems to have pluses and minuses in the weather situations. If there is a perfect place, it might be southern California where I grew up. It’s green and lush and flowering most if not all the time, but then you lose the seasonal
differences other places enjoy. Now that I live here, I really enjoy having marked seasonal changes, and if our summers weren’t so blasted lond and hot, I would consider it a near perfect place to live. I guess I have a bit of the “grass is always greener on the other side of the fence” mind set. I am really interested in following your garden experiences so I can get a good idea about what it’s like to live and garden in the UK.
Have a great day. Blessings, Natalie
I always said if I did move out of the UK it would be somewhere warmer. As I get older though, I am coming to appreciate the change in seasons. I just hate the cold. If a perfect place did exist, it would be very crowded!
You’re right, if the perfect place existed it wouldd be very crowded. So we move on with our gardens and gardening lovely the glory they bring us in spite of some level of discomfort at times. Our temp when I got up this morning was 59 and it led into an absolutely gorgeous first-day-of-fall day! The temps will warm again but hopefully the summer’s “heat beast” is on his last leg and we won’t go back up into the triple digits. I’ve been working in the garden the last several days getting beds ready for sowing larkspur and poppy seeds. If they aren’t sown in the fall here, we just don’t have any and they are two of my very favorites. Being able to be out and about has lifted my spirits out of their heat wearied state. Have a great day. Blessings, Natalie
Enjoy your garden Natalie, it sounds perfect for it at the moment!
Thanks, Jessica. I am enjoying it, and now more things are starting to bloom again. Blessings, Natalie
An excuse in time saves nine, so the sooner you think one up the better.
That’s it! I need to stitch..
Oh it is horrible to be stuck indoors isn’t it? I hope the rain eases off and you get some time to venture outside. Where’s that Ptolomy got to? I shouldn’t leave him to his own devices for too long!!!
Ptolemy is in the woods, haven’t seen him for ages but can hear him. Or a n other pheasant anyway. Hoping he’ll be back when food gets more scarce..
Raining here too! Too wet to consider anything outside and inside, well, with all the dust from the bricklaying in the back of the garage it’s pointless doing much in the way of cleaning downstairs – my excuse to get stuck into a good book:)
Sounds like the perfect excuse to me..
I’ve never thought about guttering and thatched roofs before. It’s been the same sort of weather here, but I still haven’t done any housework.
Nor did I in the end.
The other problem with the drip zone is planting anything underneath. It stays sodden all winter, so little will survive.
I’d forgotten that about thatch! I have to admit, I don’t miss it at all. Did you have problems with house insurance? NFU were the only ones that would cover us without a massive thatch premium. The rain has stopped here at last – hooray! It’s nearly dark though…sigh.
We had NFU in a previous thatched cottage, it’s another specialist insurer this time. It’s all the add ons that cost, like the premium for a wood burner, even though I don’t dare use it!!!
Love the new header! I was going to ask the same thing as Em above. We’ve seen loads of thatched cottages for sale at pretty good prices but I guess the insurance must be expensive and hard to find. xx
The insurance isn’t too bad considering, but the maintenance is quite onerous. We will need to replace the whole roof in the next few years. And as thatch is usually attached to an old house anyway it rarely ends there.
we had a gorgeous sunny afternoon here! (and your house has a thatched roof? Love them!!)
The charm of thatch makes up for all its shortcomings, for me at least. Except maybe for the spiders..
Rain here too. Funny, but dusting never crossed my mind!
š
That’s a fantastic picture. I can almost feel that drop of water going down the back of my neck. Did you manage to create a dust free home? Like you I much prefer being outside in the garden rather than housework!
Sarah x
Thanks Sarah.
I was doing well earlier in the week, but somehow got sidetracked today.. I need lots of interesting projects in the winter to distract, it’s not my favourite time of year.
We have the same weather here in Hertfordshire but, the weekend should be warmer and sunny so, no excuses !!!! XXXX
Hurrah! Can’t wait to get back out. Enjoy x
The soffits and facia are still being put on the house, and we specifically asked that the downspouts not be in the front of the house in the sitings drawn by the city planner. Thatch sounds MUCH more interesting!!!
Interesting but a lot more work. Your new roof you can just forget about in your lifetime!
Is it spelling “sitings” or “siteings”…at any rate, the city planner was most obliging!
It’s the details that count and downspouts are not pretty things. You are doing a great job!
Oh I never thought of that; so no water butts under the drain pipes ? Not too much rain here & the sun is shining as I write – hope it comes out for you today !
No, we do have one water butt on an outbuilding. Need more really.
Still very grey here, so I hope so too. Thanks Penny.
I’ve held out on the dusting – and the sun is going to come out later today, so may even get away with it until October!
The sun hasn’t got to the far reaches yet, but I hear the forecast is good. Hurrah!!!
Same here yesterday, but we braved the rain and went off for the day. I can tell you that unthatched shop fronts in Totnes drip accurately too – right onto my head, into my middle parting, to be precise. But then the sun came out, and we were far too far from home to even think of dusting (our bedroom!!) or painting (that bathroom!!) or – oh so much worse – hoovering (everywhere!!). Today’s great forecast for sun hasn’t been proved right yet. I may have to go out to avoid housework….
I am thinking of staging a hoovering strike until I am bought a cordless one. Isn’t it just too much hassle in a cottage with so many corners, nooks and crannies.. ?
No one should ever run out of excuses for not doing the dusting … have a few of mine …
I can’t remember where I put the dusters/this book’s due back at the library tomorrow/apparently not dusting reduces ozone (yes, really, it’s been researched!).
I love that last one.
The water treatment plant that we had installed is very sensitive to modern day cleaning products. Sadly, I do have to be careful how much washing I do in a day, and how often I use surface cleaners (Dettol and the like) in the kitchen.
I like the colours and textures of the thatch in your photo! Hopefully the weather will turn again otherwise that clay soil won’t dry out a little and gardening will be hard going. Not good.
Thankfully it was dry today, so I’m hoping tomorrow I will be able to get out again. The weeds have been growing like crazy!
Think it’s supposed to get warmer from today, so now your housework is done you can get back out there! Julie x
Rain again this morning, but hopefully later!
We’ve been through Cheshire and Shropshire today and Thatch is everywhere in these counties some even with guttering though I prefer it without! Not a drop of rain fell today though it was over 20 degrees. Pass the duster to Mike and go outside and enjoy yourself.
It seems rather murky here, with drizzly stuff coming in off the Atlantic. But yesterday it cleared up and I got a lot done, so hopefully the same today.
It has been raining here all day. We did do a trip to the landfill, dressed in wellies and raincoats, to get rid of a lot of brush we had cut during the week. The rest of the day has been spent inside catching up on those jobs we always say are for rainy days!
Ours is going the same way now, I’ve long since overwhelmed the compost bin!
I thinks nature is trying to tell you something…
I have to confess I wouldn’t be listening to nature either if it involved dusting š
Hate it Cherie. Not that I enjoy any type of housework if truth be known..
And here I felt relieved that we finally had a rainy day today! š It has been a pretty dry summer here.
It’s been a lot drier here than the last few summers, I am grateful for that.
I forgot that about a thatch! We used to own a thatched cottage and I can remember on rainy days that we used to go out the back rather than the front door otherwise we would get a cold shower. I do miss it though, especially on winter days when the cottage was so warm with the wood burners pumping out their heat.
Thanks for your comment on my post xx
Thatch is a very good insulator, especially if you also had thick walls. Our kitchen is in a modern extension, and it’s freezing in comparison!