How very odd to look out the window and...

...see it raining bricks.

Luckily for me, I heard a strange racket just before that, and caught sight of a young man who works for our landlord setting up a ladder. And luckily the landlord had told me a few weeks ago that sometime before winter he was going to have the chimney taken down so the roof could finally be fixed properly. (We've had all sorts of leaks.)

Now, if I could just get the cats convinced that the pounding and shaking and thuds are not signaling the end of the world we'll be in great shape... ;)

Whoever's on the roof (I think there might be two of them? I'm certainly not stepping outside in a rain of bricks to chance a peek), is making very fast work of it. The bricks, by the way, are shattering to dust, for the most part, when they hit the blue tarp laid out on the ground to collect them. They are, in other words, badly weathered bricks, and it's certainly time for them to come down off our roof. The chimney no longer exists in the living quarters anyway. I presume it got taken out in some 'modernization' move long since. Just a guess. Why they didn't take out all the chimney at once and patch the roof back then I don't know. I guess to leave the upper chimney in place was easier? And maybe cheaper?

I'm looking forward to being rid of the leaks. I am also, ahem, circling the kitchen and playing with color combinations in my head, now that I'm beginning to think it might be worth my while to go ahead and paint in there. (There's no sense painting a ceiling that leaks, is there?)