Interesting stain

We're both well on the road to recovery.  My nose is no longer dripping like a tap, and we have more energy.  I still didn't sleep very well, but instead of waking every hour, it was every two hours.  Maybe tomorrow I'll feel up to doing a bit of tidying in the garden.

This is the stain on the ceiling that I spotted when watching TV on Monday evening.  Beneath it was a damp patch on the top of the wood burner.  It certainly wasn't there before we went on holiday.  It might have been there on Sunday, but I didn't sit in there - I went early to bed.  

We've been unable to rustle up a plumber to look at it.  Today G (who did much of our building work when we first moved in 8 years ago, but who is now "semi-retired") came to look.  He was warned about Covid, but chose to take the risk.  G has rental properties that he bought and did up as his retirement nest egg, so he's quite good at thinking simple first.  It was he who went for the simple answer to our damp problem in the lounge, and created a ditch outside to good effect.  He is pretty happy that it is just the sealant around the shower tray which is failing - which is a relief.  He didn't offer to do the job - just gave advice for W to do it.

We gave away all our half used tubes of sealant when we were clearing out the shed prior to our first attempt at selling, so will need to take a trip to a hardware shop to buy more.  Then we (W, that is) will crawl around in the shower, scraping out the old sealant and putting in fresh.

And we may try to patch up the ceiling in the lounge, provided we can get up the energy for that.  Though I don't think it is essential - our buyers will surely want to redecorate to their taste anyway.

W has started to do a list of items we will need to take when we rent - advice from anyone who has rented will be welcome about things you might not think about, but turn out to be essential.