I know it’s a cliche to say that a house is falling down around your ears, but to be honest when the bathroom ceiling plaster collapses on to my head and shoulders just as I’m sitting down for a quiet wee, I think it’s probably the most accurate way of describing the situation.

I have to say that I am not surprised by this devlopment.

I’m not particularly technical, but when the shower extractor in the loft space was commandeered by a pair of starlings three years ago, I had a nagging suspicion that perhaps we should do something about it.

When the extracting stopped, what with the plastic pipe being so stuffed up with nests and baby starlings and loose feathers and bird mites, I felt a bit uneasy.

But if your life motto is “a stitch in time means you’re not truly living in the now” or “never put off till tomorrow what you may be able to put off for a couple of years” it’s surprising how quickly you can get used to the bathroom walls literally running with water every time you so much as turn the hot tap on, and not give it another thought.

So I suppose sub-consciously I was aware that while the wall tiles could survive the tropical conditions of the bathroom, the plastered ceiling might struggle.

I sit motionless – well, it was only a wee after all – boom boom – and wait until the dust has settled.

My hair is covered in white powder and the floor looks as if the snow from last week hasn’t quite cleared.

Then I take the only course of action I can imagine, which is to tiptoe out of the bathroom and close the door, and pray that by not thinking about it the mess will go away.

Unfortunately, praying is not one of my really strong points.

I don’t know if I don’t do it thoroughly or hard enough, or if I’ve just never grasped the basics, but I can’t honestly think of many occasions when it’s paid quantifiable dividends.

Of course, you could argue that praying for things that seem unlikely to come true – such as the reversal of Newton’s law of gravitation, for example, which would allow or even encourage the plaster to start falling up towards the ceiling again – is a waste of time, simply because they just aren’t going to happen.

But surely that’s the point of praying, for heaven’s sake.

After all, why would you go round with your hands clasped murmuring “I hope work starts at 9am tomorrow. And I hope the sandwich shop is doing egg mayonnaise and cress on white bread….” ?

That’s not proper praying, that’s just stating the almost inevitable and obvious. The whole raison d’etre of praying, in my book, is that it’s something you resort to when you’re absolutely desperate and can’t depend on the weary goodwill of friends or family any more.

That’s when you start invoking an omnipotent confidante and begging him to bend the universal laws of physics in your favour.

That’s when you want to see those who have slighted you in a plaster cast or divorce court. That’s when you want to laugh in the face of your bank manager as you light a cigarette with a tenner. (Outside the bank, obviously. If you’re putting your mortal soul at risk, you don’t want to get a fixed penalty with it.) Anyway, after a while my husband comes home and I wait nursing a cup of tea while he goes upstairs to change. The expletive makes its way efficiently enough through the ceiling to inform me that my prayers have sure enough been once again unanswered.

He comes downstairs and picks up his cup, and frowns.

“I hate starlings,” he says.

This seems a little harsh, but I think even Bill Oddie’s patience would be tried by this.

“You know what we’re going to have to do now, don’t you?” he goes on.

I stall. Get a builder in? Stop showering? Put the house up for sale? I give up.

“Pray…?” I say slowly.