It never rains but it pours.

An interesting start to the year, not in a good way.

When I got back from my Mum's after XMas I was confronted with a damp patch on the ceiling in the dining room.

The dining room that Jemma and I had decorated only last year.

The position of the leak pointed at the loo in the bathroom above.

Turns out that my cistern had fractured due to the cold weather,, it happens apparently.

To make matters even worse the previous owner of the house had boxed the cistern in, so to replace it would require breaking the tiles.

The plumber was pretty good though and took all of this in his stride.

It's amazing seeing someone work who knows what he's doing and has all the right tools. 

It took him all morning, he had to pop out and get some wood at one point in order to put the new tiles in to replace the ones he had had to destroy. The only bit of good news was that we found some spare tiles under the bath.

Yep.

Not a great start to the year.

An unexpected expense.

But great to have the bathroom back and working again.

I just need to let everything dry out thoroughly now and then I'll paint the ceiling downstairs.