Glass

When I went up onto my flat roof with the ASHP service engineer nearly four months ago, I spotted some small cracks around the edge of the roof. I took photos and sent them to the builders who'd converted my house. 'Hmm, top layer only, cosmetic, won't leak, but... we'll come and put it right anyway.' (That's an advantage of employing a builder who cares about their reputation rather than going for the cheapest quote.) They put me into their schedule and yesterday Tony manoeuvred a long ladder through the house, climbed up and sanded the whole roof, way beyond the small cracks. Nasty, noisy, bendy, vibrating work, by himself because his workmate couldn't join him.

Today he brought a heavy box of rolled-up glass-fibre matting, tubs of resin and the mate. It was a perfect day for the work: dry and a good temperature both for working and for the resin to dry at the right rate. They remembered making my roof nearly three years ago in wet, below-zero weather, and having to use a cold-weather product they hadn't used before.

Long ago I used glass fibre and resin to repair some canoes and I remember how wayward and sharp the fibres are. The roofers did a very good job of tidying up the strays, while still leaving me a few to photograph.

Isn't glass amazing? 5,500-year-old Mesopotamian beads, Roman water-jugs, medieval cathedral stained glass, lanterns, ordinary windows, chandeliers, camera lenses, light bulbs, monitors, optical communications across the globe and my rain-proof roof.

Black and white in colour 307