Leaks! Leaks! Everywhere leaks!

And not of the fun, gossipy, whistle-blower kind

The top floor flat gets the light… it also gets the roof leaks….

How are you? Did you have a good Christmas?

I had one of the most magical Christmases of my life which was funny as I was absolutely racked with nerves going in. The festive season seems to get harder as I get older - I think because I haven’t formed my own family yet and so I go to my parents and often feel I’m regressing to the age of 13, trapped and grouchy and anxious.

Anyhow, my fears were not at all realised and I had a really lovely few days in Suffolk and Norfolk, catching up with my family, eating too much and playing games (always my favourite part of the festivities). I came back to London feeling socially and - yes, I’m gonna say it - spiritually refreshed. I wonder if that's a lesson in expectation? Keep your expectations in check and the odds of being pleasantly surprised by something skyrocket?

So I was trying to decide what to write to you in this, my very first Substack of 2025, and guys, I’m sorry (for you), that there is nothing else I can write about but the thing that has (pretty much) taken over my every waking thought: the leak in my roof that is steadily seeping into my bedroom wall.

Argh. Oh Lord. So… this is the first flat I have ever owned and while I’m wildly thankful and grateful to own a flat at all (I wrote about that here) in London of all places, Good God is home ownership both expensive and anxiety-inducing.

Back to the leak. I think, perhaps, I had seen those ghostly little drips a while back and not put two and two together (you should know, I’m not very practical. I am super emotionally intuitive - easily pick up when someone is upset or angry or pissed off, even if they are trying to hide it - but give me drips on a wall and my head-in-the-clouds mind won’t go: water leak!). Eventually, in November, while I was unwell and lying in my sick bed, my glance slid over to the wall and I finally got a good look at those drips.

“That’s odd,” I thought to myself. I wandered over and touched it - it felt a little clammy. “Very odd.”

I took a picture and sent it to my practical property-owner friend. She suspected condensation or a leak. I Facetimed my father and thrust my phone's camera at the offending patch of wall.

“Definitely something to get sorted out,” he said, in a jolly tone.

The leak of my nightmares

But here’s the thing: I live in a building with six flats in it. We are all obviously responsible for the insides of our own flats but anything external on the building - the brickwork, the pipes, the ROOF - are considered communal and we all have to pitch in to pay for repairs and maintenance. We also all pay a service charge of around £1000 a year, to cover buildings insurance and leave something in the kitty to cover any repairs that might need to be done.

I hate having to raise this issue with my neighbours. And logically, I know it’s not my fault and that I can’t afford to not raise it, but I just hate to A) tell people that there’s likely a bill coming soon and B) feel like I’m asking people for money (which I know I’m not really, but I feel I am).

I made the mistake of going to the one neighbour who handles most of the admin of the building. She and her husband came up to look at the damp patch, scratched their heads, went outside to look up in hopes of detecting the issue - unsurprisingly, as my flat is on the top floor, there wasn’t much to be seen from ground level - and then said they’d come back when it was raining heavily to try to spot the source of the leak.

This plan didn’t fill me with hope. What I wanted was a good old professional called in. I tried to forget about it and not focus on the drips on the wall and I could just about manage, but I was left with a background noise of low level anxiety constantly buzzing in my mind.

Why does this kind of thing fill me with this kind of nervy fear? I think mainly because I’m terrified there will be some sort of serious problem with my flat that will leave me in a hole tens of thousands of pounds deep. You hear such horror stories. I’m also well aware that I’m absolutely clueless when it comes to building works. Someone could charge me £5000 for a £500 job and I honestly wouldn’t know I’d been ripped off until I told friends about it months later. I’m very much painting myself as a stereotypically clueless female but I really am hopeless when it comes to such stuff. And actually, when I have to point out leaks to neighbours or deal with a plumber or get a quote from an electrician, I long to have a broad-shouldered gruff man backing me up by glowering at whoever I’m dealing with. When it’s just me interacting with tradesmen, I honestly feel like I might as well be twirling a pigtail through my fingers, shuffling my feet and giggling like a moronic school girl.

I went away for New Year, a big storm swept in, I came home to a bigger leak in my bedroom which no longer felt clammy but positively wet. And well, I spiralled. I thought: “I made a terrible mistake buying this flat, I never should have gone for it, I should have bought the pretty one-bedroom first floor one by the green instead.” I started looking up comparable flats on RightMove, calculating how much money I’d lose if I sold up right at that moment.

And then I wandered around my flat, touching all the walls, clambering up a step ladder to fondle the ceilings, convinced I could feel damp under my hands, certain the roof was a sieve overhead. I sat at the kitchen table listening to the drip of a phantom leak in the bathroom. I hurried to the bathroom and gazed down at the floor - hunting for droplets I was sure I would find.

I felt like I was going mad - not helped by ChatGPT (my new bestie) who helpfully informed me that if leaks were ignored, they were sure to cause dire structural damage and problems with the electrics.

I began to wonder whether a leak was the reason one of my kitchen lights had begun to flicker. Just like when I had bedbugs in New York (read about that here) and for months afterwards every rustle of my bed sheet or movement at the periphery of my sight was one of the famously resilient bugs returning to make my life hell again, suddenly every sound in my flat was a potential drip drip drip and every imperfection on the wall was almost certainly evidence of water seeping to the surface.

I broke the cycle by going out to a yoga class and then to the pool. I swam 50 lengths and my mind emptied as I ploughed through the water.

All was well, I reminded myself. I had everything I needed and most of what I wanted - words from a sponsor past that have been a reliable source of comfort ever since I first heard them. I was looked after. I could face this leak.

But what I needed to do was grow up and take charge. Where I had gone wrong was in deferring to my neighbour and expecting her to take the problem out of my hands and deal with it. Quite why I thought she could inspect a damp patch and know immediately where said damp was coming from, I don’t know. But I realised - as I treaded water at the edge of the pool - that that urge to pass the problem on, to have someone else sort it, is A) appealing to a child-like part of my personality that does not serve me in certain situations¹ B) unfair to other people because you are really just shunting work off on to them and C) it just wouldn’t do the job here.

So I took a deep breath, returned home, carefully wrote out a message (that I checked with my guidance counsellor ChatGPT) explaining the situation to all my neighbours, attaching pictures, proposing we arranged for a roofer to take a look. Guys, this may not seem brave to you but I was absolutely terrified to send that WhatsApp message. However, I sucked it up, acted like a grown-ass woman and pressed send. And then hyperventilated on the bus.

But hey ho, it looks like the wheels are in motion and fingers crossed, I am one step closer to the leak being dealt with - I'll keep you posted on the sorry saga, but it is cheering to kick 2025 off with an act of bravery (even if that act of bravery is just sending an uncomfortable Whatsapp).

Oh, and over New Year, I spoke to a friend who works in property and who, from what I can gather, is a DIY fiend. He told me that he thinks everyone should own a copy of Collins Complete DIY Manual - not so the book will teach them DIY, but so they understand more about things like plumbing and electrics and what jobs entail which might make them a little more clued up when things go wrong in their home and which will, I hope, stop me from turning into a pigtail-twirling idiot the next time I get a plumber in.

Other Bits And Pieces

Exercising daily

This is one of my resolutions. Moving my body in an intentional way every day. So far, for me, that looks like a good walk, a yoga class, a swim or a gym session (I can't run at the moment as I have strained my poor hip flexor). This is much easier for me to do because I work for myself and from home but Lord, daily movement helps with so many things - first and foremost it is a powerful tool in my arsenal against the descending gloom. Also, I have found that the more you move, the more you want to move.

The 12-Date Programme

So, I read this article in The Times during the dead days about a woman who went through a rough break-up and came up with a challenge: one first date every month for a year. Friends joined in and she set up a WhatsApp group, which at its peak had about 28 members, where everyone chatted about the dates they went on etc. It sounded like a fun way to force yourself to date (something I need to do) so I'm going to do it! I have enlisted two pals so far, we're in a WhatsApp group - if you fancy joining in, let me know. And, as I said to one pal who is also in recovery, "12-date programme sounds like 12-step which is pleasing to me", and she replied, "oh yes, I'm a big believer in the number twelve."

Hyacinths to lift the gloom

My mother plants hyacinths to lift the gloom of the winter months. She does that clever thing where she plants the bulbs and puts them in a dark cupboard to 'force' them out, and then, hey presto, in these horrid sodden days where the sky looks like a dirty pillowcase overhead, she has a gorgeous pink or blue or white flower with that heady scent, glowing in the gloom, whispering promises of spring. I went and got my own and now I'm watching as they slowly bloom on my window sills. Absolutely would recommend.

A gorgeous perfume

I have a friend called Madeleine Spencer who is just... well, she belongs in a novel, she is charm personified and also warmth and generosity and just so damn funny. Just before Christmas, she invited me to come with her to L'Artisan Parfumeur at Harrods (which my father calls Horrids) for a little class in perfume with a perfumer who would then help us pick a perfume each. Guys, I highly recommend becoming pals with a beauty journalist. Anyhow, we went and it really was fascinating. I have interviewed a perfumer before and was stunned by the actual science of the job - they have to know the smells of 3,500 raw materials and are just like sommeliers.

Sitting with the L'Artisan perfumer and learning just how many scents there are and how 'master noses', as they are called in the business, do so much research and testing to create these formulas that then appear in perfume bottles in shops. Anyway, I settled on the L'Artisan Noir Exquis which the perfumer called 'gourmand' - which means a perfume inspired by edible ingredients such as chocolate or caramel or vanilla. Apparently inspired by a romantic rendezvous in a Parisian patisserie (Lord, I want a romantic rendezvous in a Parisian patisserie), the fragrance has notes of candied chestnut and bitter dark coffee, vanilla (but smokey) and, well, I put it on and I smell DELICIOUS.

Me and Mads yesterday - we both smelt divine

That's it from me, you guys, so lovely to be back. I hope you are well and that you are excited for the year ahead, rolled out like the most magnificent scroll of blank paper ready for any scribble. See you soon xxx

1. Interestingly, this is one of the useful nuggets I gleaned in therapy yonks ago. I was telling my therapist how I sometimes, in stressful situations such as work, acted like a little girl to get out of something. I said it was a useful strategy - I usually got out of whatever tricky situation I was in - but that I also had to bear the consequences, e.g. colleagues and bosses who saw me as a little girl and therefore didn’t trust me when it came to work opportunities etc that I wanted. And my therapist said that it was about the context of acting like a child. She said that I should be able to express child-like joy in certain situations - when I am with friends or doing something I love - but that I should consider whether in other situations - like work or dealing with a leak in the roof - it’s appropriate to behave like a child. Ok, like so many things in therapy, it sounds bleeding obvious but I swear it felt like a breakthrough in the session!