We were having a nice morning… then we came home.
The overflow pipe from the top floor flat is leaking again. Torrents were coming from it a few months ago – you wouldn’t’ve thought such a thing was possible, but it was like a very concentrated rain cloud! And it made a big permanent puddle in the corner of the veranda (or whatever it’s called) which was naturally quite a child magnet and stayed so long the walls and ground started to get discoloured from the damp. So eventually, after much shifting of responsibility (and no action to get the overflow problem fixed), someone from the office came and put a drain there and attached it to the existing drainage system. Clever, eh?
So I was a mite surprised to come home today and see that the puddle had returned! And why? Because the drain has a very snugly-fitting plug in it. So, instead of putting the shopping away, feeding the children and putting G down for his nap, I had to stand, barefoot, in the puddle, with a shower of water splashing down right next to me, while I battled with this plug with bare hands, then with a peg and then with a kitchen knife (we apparently don’t have pliers here – one of the disadvantages of having a man from the office to do stuff for us is that we’re not fully stocked on tools). Anyway, the kitchen knife and sheer bad temper finally did the trick, and the puddle drained (with impressive speed, actually – I stayed a little longer in the puddle to watch). The noise is still there, though – drip splash drip drip splash splash drip.
Still, it’s reached the high 30s here now, so having damp jeans on one side for half an hour is not a major hardship! Just one of those little irritations, like
running out of electricity at 1am and having to get out of bed, get dressed and go out to buy more
running a bath with the curiously-positioned tap which splashes half the water over the side onto the clever runnel that delivers it all to the floor
having no water for my shower in the morning
having to carry my school bag, G, G’s bag and my handbag into school, when it’s already hot, from the furthest parking spot, because I’m late in because I was dropping off the children at their school because M is away…
Grrrrrr!!
