Listen very carefully...

I've spent the better part of this morning cowering downstairs in the living room. No, it's not because of another earthquake. I am simply the victim of my own overactive imagination. I keep hearing things. Noises coming from the roof. Except they seem to be coming from inside the roof - the loft, attic or whatever you like to call it.

I woke up to these noises, these 100% definitely there noises! To start with I thought it was just a bird scrabbling about on the roof but then the noises started to get louder. Surely too loud for a mere bird on a roof. I started to get a bit freaked out. You know when you're alone in the house and you hear something strange, your mind goes into a sort of paranoid overdrive. It's a cat in the roof... no, a rat... no, the earthquake shook the chimney loose and it's about to fall on top of me... no, it's the hot water tank about to explode... gah!

However I couldn't very well stay downstairs all morning so I took my courage in both hands and went up to have a shower. I thought it was very brave of me considering the possibility that the roof might fall down at any moment and I'd be stuck butt-naked in a pile of rubble, unsure as to whether or not I wanted the fire service to come and rescue me or not.

Shower dealt with I had to go back to my room to get dressed. Cue a loud radio. Ah-ha - now I cannot hear you, you freaky noises! Up and dressed I leg it down the stairs and stay there. Unfortunately, our house is a pretty creaky one anyway. It's not actually that old - I think it was built about 30 years ago - but it just loves to creak, often in new and unexpected ways. So now, every little sound that I hear it make is confirmation of my worst fears. Although come to think of it, I'm now entirely sure what my worst fear is. I was most worried about some living thing being up there but actually it would be far worse if it was actually the house making all those noises. Hmmm... I probably shouldn't dwell on this any longer. Time to watch some TV at an unnecessarily high volume.