For the past two days between one to three men have spent a total of 19 man-hours trying to fix what they first described as a "tiny leak". It all began innocently enough: the three turned up to check the air conditioner. This is normal in HK - you get the guy that runs the crew, the guy that does the work, and the other guy who doesn't seem to do anything. They "fixed" the air con. Except it wasn't cold. They came back and found the "problem". It was "fixed". That was 6pm last night. By 7pm a small drip started, directly outside our bedrooms. As Mrs M put it, our very own Chinese water torture chamber in the comfort of our own home. Mrs M has said how she misses the sound of rain on the roof. When I pointed out how this could substitute, she told me she didn't mean one drop at a time. Fair point.

One man turned up early this morning to fix it. Since then they have worked, with a break for lunch, the whole day. The other two joined him for the afternoon session. Mrs M's description of them was "One guy who's phone rings every minute, one guy looking very confused and angry, and the other guy..." So far they have completely removed a section of the roof. They finally got the leak fixed about half an hour ago. They now need to replace the roof, paint the water-stained ceiling and fix the water-logged floor.

Mrs M has invited them to stay for dinner. But they're not touching my beer, damnit.