How to Clean a Conservatory Roof

The conservatory roof was covered in moss and the window clearer wanted £100 to clean it. I speak fluent window cleaner and this translates as ‘I don’t want to do that’.

And so it came to pass that I spent a good chunk of last Saturday poking a long bamboo stick out of the bedroom window and then climbing a ladder to try from the other direction. Eventually the moss was clear but it needed washing down. From my new vantage point I met a new neighbour, whose garden backs onto ours. He offered a free and far reaching monologue on the abilities of the original owner of my house. That man apparently got a job lot of fence posts ‘off of the railway’ and then discovered there were no commercially available panels to fit the grooves but by then had concreted the posts in which is why the panels rattle in the wind. My new neighbour offered me a loan of his power washer.

As there wasn’t much cleaning to do now the moss was free I said I would take him up on his kind offer if the rain didn’t shift it. ‘That’ll be Monday’ said NN who has lived here thirty years and therefore knows about the rain’s plans.

All we needed were a couple of buckets of water to wash the debris down the roof and into the gutter. From my ladder vantage point I directed TCMT in the bathroom as to which panels needed rinsing and we had some success.

I need to digress for a moment here. TCMT and I have been married for sapphire years and together for 49. I know that she speaks mainly emotion and I speak if absolutely necessary and with some precision. I can have a spontaneous emotional discussion but I try to anticipate it and prepare. She, for her part, knows I like and use clear instructions. So what happened next is my fault. She had been pouring the water slowly, carefully and gently up to this point so my instruction, pointing to a bit we had missed, to ’Chuck some over there’ was meant to be about direction not power.

Instantly a whole bucketful of water was thoroughly chucked where I was pointing but, due to some science, that would not be the end of its journey. I was up a ladder directing operations and in a microsecond calculated that:

• I was about to be soaked
• I could avoid this by moving but that could only be down and fast and I might break a bit

I did what any sensible person would have done in the circumstances and shut my mouth. Two microseconds later my mouth was the only bit of me that did not contain water.

I repeat that this was entirely my own fault for being a cute systematising male. Oh, ‘acute’ is it? Sorry.

What is unforgivable is that the bucket wielder then began to laugh. Somewhat sympathetically and apologetically but uncontrollably nevertheless. The roof looks lovely. It is Monday and not currently raining.