'There's good news and there's bad news...'

Child's puzzle blocks bought at a jumble sale

I am surrounded by devastation.  The house is covered in tarpaulin which flaps all night in the wind.  All the windows have been blanked out with black polythene to prevent splashes of plaster on the glass so it's even more dark inside than usual and positively medieval.

It keeps raining so that wet chalk is spreading everywhere, the garden is a mass of trampled vegetation and I have never known so few people get through so much coffee and sugar.  Particularly sugar.  I wonder if they are using it as a building material.

Conversations start with 'There's good news and there's bad news...'.    They've gone away for a week now leaving instructions that we should spray the whole exterior of the house twice each day with a fine mist.  I'm on leave for a couple of weeks now and that's what I'll be doing.  Up a scaffold, wearing a sou'wester and  lugging a hosepipe.  Mind you, there's so much rain coming down at the moment that it doesn't really seem necessary.

On the upside, they have uncovered a traditional farmhouse half timbered gable dating from the early eighteenth century.  They were extremely excited about that and a bit disappointed that it had been very thoroughly chewed by a nineteenth century worm.  An 'honest repair' is in progress.

Not sure what age of child it's intended for, but I found it quite difficult