Gloom

Gloom is a strange word, when you think about it in isolation ...

It describes conditions here,  in the sense that darkness is falling  early and  rain is driving in in almost continuous showers.

Gloomy is the mood indoors too. We are having one of those days. This morning, the shower room loo blocked. The plumber said he was having a meltdown and gave us a number to ring. A large man, tattooed on every visible surface, turned up and in the space of an hour turned what was a minor inconvenience into a disaster. His enthusiastic use of the plunger, followed by some sort of power washer, succeeded in blasting the connections in the system to pieces, (and the ones from the shower). So we have a flushing loo, but the product goes no further than the foundations of the house. And there was no way he was going to fit through the hatch and crawl about the underdrawings .....

While all this was unfolding, we were too preoccupied to notice that the wind had got up - and into the gazebo. It ended up in the vegetable garden, upside down and beyond repair.

Things happen in threes, we know. Now I'm wondering if the vacuum cleaner going on the blink is serious enough to qualify as the third. It wouldn't normally, but Number One son and family are arriving at lunchtime tomorrow (just as well he rang, I was expecting them on Saturday). I'm sure they won't mind the cat hair everywhere .... more annoying will be the queues for the one remaining shower (there will be 10 of us in the house come Monday)  I can't see us finding a plumber to fix it by then. Am I sounding a little fraught?

The shot, for Abstract Thursday (thanks to Ingeborg), is of some of the organic material that has collected on the wall by the back door, gleaned from the garden and various beaches over the years.