As October makes its thundery and grey way in we are packing to return to England for the two month wet season.
Leaving the business, the building the family always makes me anxious and the weeks before we leave are consumed with making everything shipshape and water tight. That means this year ripping off the roof and replacing it entirely with a fluffy new grass one.
Sadly due to the extreme heat and dry spell our grassy roof just crisped up to virtually nothing. When the rains finally came and the heavens opened the crispy skinny grasses, baked to nothingness by months of savage sun, gave up the ghost and proved no match for the rains.
We suddenly found ourselves with a totally porous roof, which once the rain started provided virtually no shelter for customers who found themselves with water dripping down their necks and off their noses into their food.
So Ooh spent a lot of time swinging around the rafters wedging bits of cardboard in the worst drippy bits and I spent a lot of time trying not to look up during daylight hours, where the bright contrast of the sunlight meant I could see the blue sky clearly and distinctly through most of the disintegrating roof.
Eventually the new grass arrives, remaining in piled stacks across the road, covered with tarps until Shrimp finds enough time to pick away at it each day. This is a messy process. When the old roof is ripped off section by section it showers everything in sight with a thick layer of powdery grey dust and black mould.
The new replacement grass then showers everything in fresh grass shavings which are frustratingly itchy. The clean up job on the restaurant each day is immense and work on the roof must stop at three in order to get open for six. Also the punishing heat of the day makes the hours from 12-2 unworkable. Our re-roofing is thus limited to a frustratingly short couple of hours in the morning before Shrimp goes off to the main town to get the shopping. The roof takes weeks and in the meantime customers are getting wetter and wetter nightly as the showers that herald the arrival of the wet season become more intense.
Eventually all the work is done, the place is sandbagged, re-roofed. Missing latches, window panes and leaky bits are plugged, sealed and replaced. Still, a gnawing anxiety is constantly with me. I know the ferocious damage the rains can do. I’ve seen the river racing past in white-water torrents centimetres from the kitchen door, I fuss over the dangerous Thai electrics and my fear of the water reaching the kitchen and electrifying everything.
We net down the new roof, cross our fingers and hope for the best. I’ll let you know how it goes.
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