Thunder wakes me in the early hours of Saturday morning. The sky was a huge yellow bruise when we went to bed so we knew a storm was coming. But I hoped it might do a swerve and head for France instead.

I’ve got nothing against summer storms. Cornwall is awesome when the air’s heavy with the tang of sulphur and lightning forks into a black sea. But it’s the rain that’s worrying me; the rain and Tregavara House’s dodgy roof.

Slipping out of bed, I sit at the open window watching as the village is lit up by white flashes and thunder rolls around the valley. Behind me, Josh’s legs are tangled in a crumpled sheet and his bare back gently rises and falls in time with his breathing. That man could sleep through anything after sharing a house with Freya when she was a baby.

A sudden gust of wind billows the curtains into my face and rain begins to fall. Oh, no. Fat drops splatter and burst on the garden path and the scent of baked earth drifts into the bedroom as I cross my fingers this is as bad as it gets.

Has the crossing fingers thing ever worked? I wonder, when there’s a crash of thunder and rain begins to fall in torrents – proper torrents that scour the pavement and form dark rivulets where water meets the road. After a while, the rain starts bouncing off the stone window ledge onto my nightshirt and I’m pulling the window closed when there’s an ear-curdling screech from the landing.

‘What the hell?’ Josh is sitting bolt upright in bed, rubbing his eyes. ‘What’s going on?’

Before I can answer, another screech echoes along the landing before being drowned out by a huge clap of thunder.

Josh leaps out of bed but I’m at the door before him. The landing is in darkness but illuminated every few seconds by flashes of lightning. The storm must be directly above us now because the thunder is deafening, and rain is smashing into the stained-glass window above the staircase.

I flick the light switch, but nothing happens. The power’s out.

Another flash lights up Storm, standing in her long white T-shirt like a ghost.

‘It’s coming in,’ she yells into the darkness.

‘What is?’ I trip and stumble over the shoes that Storm will insist on leaving in the middle of the landing.

‘Water. I almost drowned in my sleep. There’s water everywhere.’

Josh sprints past me, waving a torch, and rushes into Storm’s room. He points the light at the ceiling, which is moving as though it’s come to life. No, it’s not the ceiling that’s moving. It’s water – a stream of water that’s cascading onto Storm’s bed. Josh waves his torch across the room and the beam picks up another stream flowing from the ceiling in the corner.

‘This house is trying to kill me,’ wails Storm as Jacques emerges from Alice’s room in a striped dressing gown. He does a double-take at Emily, who’s lit up by Josh’s torch and looks like a giant rabbit in her fluffy onesie.

‘Mon dieu! Qu’est-ce qui se passe?’

‘Water’s coming in through the roof,’ shouts Josh above the thunder. ‘I need to get into the attic.’

He illuminates the ceiling hatch that’s halfway along the landing, pulls down the loft ladder and clambers up it, closely followed by Jacques.

‘Not again!’ moans Storm when a flash of lightning turns night to day and she gets an eyeful up Jacques’ dressing gown. ‘Social services would have a field day in this place.’

‘Buckets and torches!’ I yell, leading a charge for the kitchen.

Twenty minutes later, the storm has passed and the floor of Storm’s bedroom is an obstacle course of buckets, bowls and anything else we could find to catch the water that’s still dripping. I’ve stripped her bed and made up a new one for her in the small spare room that Barry and Toby use.

‘We’ve done the best we can and patched up the roof with polythene,’ says Josh, coming down the ladder ahead of Jacques while I shine my torch on the rungs.

‘How bad is it?’ I uncross my crossed fingers because what’s the point?

‘The repair held, ironically, but another part of the roof’s letting in water now. I think the roof’s completely knackered. Has the storm passed?’

‘I think so. It’s heading for Land’s End.’

‘Thank goodness for that.’ Josh turns, his face ghostly in torch light, and shakes Jacques’ hand. ‘Thank you for your help and sorry about all of this. I don’t suppose rain coming through the roof is what you expect from a B&B.’

‘Not really but it’s not a problem. I found it quite exciting actually.’

‘Exciting?’ mutters Storm. ‘You’d have found it fricking terrifying if Titanic was being re-enacted in your bedroom.’

Jacques doesn’t hear, or pretends not to, and bids us all bonne nuit before heading for his dry bed. Storm slouches off after him to the spare room and Emily gives me a brief hug before going back to her room.

‘Can we get by with another repair to the roof?’ I ask Josh once Emily’s door has clicked shut.

‘I expect so but it’s just short-term, Annie. We can’t put off sorting out the roof properly forever and it needs to be done before the winter storms set in or this house has had it.’

Darkness cloaks his lovely face when he lowers the torch and pulls me close against him. His chest is still damp from battling with the elements and several metres of polythene.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he murmurs into my hair. ‘I know how much this house means to you.’

It means so much to me, I might have to let it go to save it.