Without warning

Oh, my poor sister....

After our lovely weekend, my sis and bil arrived back in Cornwall last night to find their house totally flooded out. It seems a pipe burst in the loft, flooding the bathroom, and (partly) bringing the ceiling down (the plumber later finished the job and brought it right down!) . The water then continued to pour out of the bathroom door and down the stairs, flooding the hall and one of their living rooms. It cascaded down through a toilet ceiling ruining that small room too, and ran down the walls of adjoining bedrooms. Their dining room - below the bathroom - is wrecked; they have no lighting, and no heating either... and the top of a windy hill in Cornwall is not the warmest place in January, as anyone from down that way will tell you.

Last night they spent the night in an hotel, and they'll be back there tonight and for the immediate future, as the restoration people and assessors are not coming in until Wednesday. You can imagine their dismay and horror rolling home to discover that!

It must have gone sometime in the night on Friday or early hours of Saturday, because the neighbours heard the alarm start about 2am. They think that as the water soaked everything the wall papers started to roll back and fall off, triggering the sensor, and as it was still going next day, one of their neighbours called round to investigate. At that time he could see nothing amiss through the front. Eventually tho, he managed to get round the back and saw the dining room was awash... at which point he located the external stop cock and turned it off. Thank heavens for him.

It's such a shame as it's only recently they've got over having to have major restoration work to a serious problem which led to wet rot, and which was galloping at several feet a month! There have been other disasters, always something... and it was only when we were down there in December that my sister was saying how wonderful it was to have the house back at last and to relax with all the jobs and problems sorted finally... Poor thing - her peace of mind didn't last too long, did it?

I believe it's an unlucky house. I've always said this. There's no bad feel there... but they just seem to encounter one situation after another... too many for coincidence in my mind. I think it's a bad luck plce... maybe built on ley lines or something. My sister agrees. Her other half does not however. He has no superstitions at all. But going over the deeds not long after they moved in, my sister noted that most of the people who'd lived there had had very little luck... always some unfortunate thing taking place, and while they've had no personal bad luck, the house has had plenty...

I'd advise getting it in shape and getting it gone. Some places are just like that. You can't change the way it is. Bad luck is bad luck... and no amount of not believing it is going to make any difference to that.

On a lighter note I thought I'd share this lovely papercrafted lantern as a sort of symbol of hope for them... It's the card Carl's mum made for us for Christmas. It's so pretty and intricate that I hung it in the hall so visitors could see it when they came in.

Gorgeous, isn't it?

And this is the birthday card he received...

Absolutely lovely IRL... sigh.... wish I had her talent.....