Not a terribly adventurous weather forecast for this time of year is it? A squillion pounds worth of powerful supercomputers running multi-threaded modelling software all expertly analysed by blokes with beards and yet this is the best they can come up with? So I’ve challenged myself to do better, and in no way felt hampered by having nothing more than a window, a rainfall measuring device* and many years of weather lore ingrained by being continually pissed on while commuting.

But I thought it was important to start small** and look for a niche opportunity to sell this fresh new meteorological service. So I bring to you “The Indoor Forecast” – now I accept the market is potentially only two children with no money of their own, a woman who has none of my obsession for stuff I can’t change and a dog, who while looking interested and keen, views weather as something that aids running, eating sheep shit and rolling in fox poo.

On the upside, it does give me an ideal opportunity to stop the kids’ pocket money and raid their bank accounts. The next obvious question would be “Exactly how hard is it to forecast indoor weather“. Well quite bloody hard actually Mr. Clever Trousers, especially when your heating system is essentially a NASA space shuttle only with more complexity and potential for catastrophic explosions.

We had great plans for our utility room, all scuppered by the installation of a Scud Missile masquerading as two hot water cylinders and a Swedish Heat Pump that has more than the odd blond moment. There is no room for anything other than shock and awe with the sheer quantity of stuff connecting the two. We have the output of 400 metres of under garden pipe at one end, multiple snakes of hot and cold water conduits disappearing through various apertures, electrical systems strung between the two and pumps, so many pumps pushing liquid this way and that. It is exactly like a 70s film set where the cat-stroking bad guy cackles”Ah Mr. Bond, marvel at my Destroy The World machine and see now that I cannot be beaten mwaaaahhhh”

So the bottom of the house is heated by underfloor heating, the top by big radiators, the bathrooms by huge steel towel rails all working off different circuits and powered by different, er, stuff. The hot water is another physics lesson in itself, and I’ve taken to wondering aloud if it is all really just magic, with careful examination of the darker spaces bringing elves and other magic creatures into the light.

“What has all this to do with indoor weather?” you demand. Well just this; on Monday evening, the local forecast at 21:45 hours was for a cool front passing through the kitchen (dog outside, door open), a warm channel of air being forced between two channels of high pressure (sure you can work that out), cloudy upstairs (steaming bath) and extremely wet on two walls where once there had been just dry plaster and fresh paintwork.

The outlook was not good at all. The threat of localised flooding was a real possibility, as were lighting strikes from frying electrics and definite impediments to travel unless one was packing an inflatable. At times like this, it’s important your first response gets right to the heart of the problem. Knowing this, and not much else I shouted to Carol “Probably worth knowing someting has exploded upstairs and we’ve Vietnamese boat people docking at our TV“. She instantly diagnosed the problem and dispatched me to Mission Control to shut down all systems.

Again, not as easy as it sounds. It goes like this; run into utility room and be faced with a barrage of flanges, wheels and valves, flashing me back to WWII films where the plucky brit single handedly attempts to put out a massive fire in a submarine engine room. In such films, rarely does the hero dash back into the kitchen for a chair much needed to ascend the North Face of the Scud. A riot of grunting, flipping and punching eventually created a tense quiet on the Western Front. The cascade was reduced to a dribble, which descrives well my soggy mental conditon as well.

The advent of a proper plumber brought guiltily forth a faulty “sealed for life“*** component that had decided it would rather be a hose than a pipe. We’re still awash in the sea of damp carpet, mouldering plaster and soggy floor, but had it happened an hour later, the forecast would have told of the kind of disaster that unstoppable hot water at mains pressure would create.

I am considering though a return to wood fires and tin baths. Or getting some new elves in. Elf and Safety you see – they just don’t go together. The forecast for the rest of the week is turning increasingly grumpy, with large clouds of depression and some internal wine showers at regular intervals.

* Bucket
* And work down.
*** Maybe of a mayfly. Lasted a total of four days.

We’re going for a temporal shift tonight. Rather than me imagine something that could have happened and may be amusing, I need you to stir your creative juices* so to paint some pictures in your head**. Because the photos that really should accompany this post are as yet untaken. There are many good reasons for this, but I shall give you just one: It is already dark and somebody stole the spare from my time.

First the “garden” – never really a garden really and certainly not one now. After Ken “The Lost Wurzel” and his mighty digger excavated an unbelievable 150 tonnes of harcore, this former car park now resembles the showpiece exhibit for the Manhattan Project. Either than or ground zero at a significant meteor strike.

I expect to receive our first inquisitive visitors once we’ve upgraded to the full Flanders Trench experience due next week. Christ knows how much deeper we can go before we hit the water table. Or Australia. Not that this troubles the many tradespeople now setting up second home in our house. A round table roll up and tea excavation summit ended with the following joint statement “Arrgh, she’ll be fine”

Yes, we do seem to be employing pirates. This in no way phases me as I have really no idea what’s going on at all anymore. If one of the interchangeable Geoffs/Johns/Kens wandered in and announced “okay the Gorrilla is here, still going in the utility room, yes?” I’d just assume the big furry fella is an integral part of the heating system, and go and fetch some bananas.

There has to be some reason for the roof being four inches higher than it was*** and a 8 foot primate would seem as good idea as any. It certainly looks like Godzilla was involved in cutting a doorway between the hall and the mini warehouse tacked onto the side of the house. And quite why a new wall has gone up in there is the kind of mystery beyond my ken to solve.

Maybe we’re going to box the kids in? Not that I’ve seen much of them either because my time is spent between keyboard and paintbrush with not much in between. Today I wasted invested four hours protecting our massive erection with a fluid not unlike the fnar-fnar where we came in.

I was – predictably – so bored I painted in a style of whatever the mp3 player was shuffling. So Green Day meant anarchistic splashes while The Killers segued into rhythmic stripes. A long forgotten prog rock track extended the brushing past the end of the wood, and onto the dog. Still he looks good with a racing stripe.

You really do need to see some pictures. Not because it is any way interesting, rather I need someone to tell me it’s going to get better soon and all this money/dust/boredom/stress is worth it. I’d consider pitching a tent in what’s left of the garden and declaring myself temporarily insane except a) no one would really notice and b) it’s not so bad that CAMPING could in any way be better.

Well it wasn’t that bad until I found another big hole. It’s in the budget spreadsheet and I’ve just filled it with a large glass of wine.

* Perfectly legal with the proviso that no animals are harmed during the process.

** Better than crayons eh? I’ve got a good handle on the mental age of most of my readers.

*** This was amusing. A bunch of blokes trying to gauge how long four inches was. The fairer sex were somewhat more accurate.