It has been absolutely, relentlessly bucketing down with rain since the early hours of the morning, at times horizontal, everything is quite damp.

This afternoon Bessie arrived home from Uni to find that not just ThePalace(OfLove) was leaking**, there was also a small crack in my newly bottled vanilla extract and slightly vanilla-flavoured cheap vodka soaked through an adjacent box of bicarb soda.

Darn.

To make the extract we used the cheapest vodka we could find. I think we paid a smidge more than this. But who knew there was such a thing as Australian vodka?

And an 8-times Royal Easter Show award winning vodka at that! Sure, the last time it won was in 1976, but hey – award winning.

And now I have an unexpected box of vanilla(ish) award winning cleaning product.

** so so so much leaking – plus brand new leaks. Last week we scheduled the roof repairs and were just waiting on replacement flashing to arrive before the repairs could start – argh! Stupid rain.

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For the past few days I have had horribly aching fingers on both hands. Naturally I thought I had developed some sort of incurable finger disease or the early stages of arthritis.

What I actually think is that I have been clutching my hands into fists extremely tightly in my sleep. One morning I had a row of nail marks in one of my palms – clearly I am a little tense about something!