Extreme plumbing

Have you ever thought that as ‘Every cloud has a silver lining’, the opposite is also true? In other words, one might say that ‘Under every rainbow, some poor sod somewhere is getting drenched’.

Well some time ago my brother from UK told us he and his family were coming out on holiday in August. Of course this was wonderful news and there was great whoop, whoop!ing all round as I replied to his email, assuring him that the weather would be fantastic because our Winter ends on 31 July….. and insisting that they all stay with us.

But earlier this month the excitement of this wonderful family reunion was tempered by Mrs Ed’s production of ... The List. And of course it would turn out that I would be the poor sod getting drenched.
“What’s this?” I asked incredulously as she dropped the 12 A4 sheets of paper on my chest. After all, she had obviously thought it worthy of interrupting my all-important session of Deep Thoughts, (most effective when undertaken in the horizontal on the hammock with the eyes closed position).

“Just a few things that we need to get done around the house before the UK family arrive,” she grunted, jettisonning a well-masticated plug of chewing tobacco across the lawn. So endeth any further Deep Thought sessions.

Now I must point out here that Mrs Ed is ‘House-Proud’ to an eccentric degree when it comes to having people stay with us, and it doesn’t matter how many times I assure her that “It doesn’t matter because it’s family”, she insists that we spend a ridiculous amount of time fixing up all those things which, in my mind, give our home character.

“Explain how a shower-head-that-spontaneously-flies-off-and-cracks-you-on-the-back-of-the-skull adds character?” she complains, rather unreasonably I think.
And it’s a long list, I tell you. According to Mrs Ed, overseas visitors would not appreciate our home’s delightful little nuances.... Like the comically concave spare bed mattress which touches the floor in places because someone stole the three middle supporting slats for emergency braai wood late one night…. And our quirky TV which only has sound on two channels and is so dark in picture that you can’t watch any scenes happening at night ….. And the fireplace that has a kink in the chimney which really renders the TV’s problems insignificant…. in a smoky, hazy sort of way.

And so it goes on, and Muggins here has spent the last few weekends attempting to get our home up to the ridiculously high standard that Mrs Ed has set. I mean, does she really believe that my sister-in-law would be offended by having to wear gumboots and use a candle every time she needs the loo at night? (The light only flickers to life seven hours after it has been switched on, and there’s a cistern leak somewhere which kind of makes the floor a little damp in a one-inch-deep sort of way…)

I should tell you that the bathroom has been like that for years, and the only slight upset we’ve had was when Sally the Spaniel snuck in there one evening and lay down for a while until a rather elderly visitor of ours ‘used the facilities’. Apparently the enthusiastic welcome our wet dog gave her, shortly after she sat down in the dark, did not bode well for the visitor’s rodent phobia. Still, no reason for her to run off half dressed and screaming like that, most embarrassing in front of our neighbours, I thought.

So the other evening I decided to tackle our shower. You see apart from its sadistic, self-launching, skull-cracking nozzle, it has other problems too. Problems which perhaps might take those less alert than us by surprise.

For example there is a certain knack to acquiring hot water without getting your head scalded… or frozen. Those in the know will turn the hot tap anti-clockwise… about a quarter turn at a time… whilst simultaneously tugging it away from the wall in calculated jerky movements. For best results it’s good to slowly ease the cold water tap on bit by bit at the same time.

Alas, apparently this is not something we will be able to teach our guests, so I had to sort it out.

Armed with a screwdriver, well, the kitchen knife that I USE as a screwdriver at least, I set about trying to access the inner workings of the hot tap. Of course the tap turned with my efforts and THIS time the water came on instantly. I quickly realized that having a shower fully clothed is a bad idea:- Even Hot water gets cold quite quickly if you are wearing it in your sweat shirt.

Thinking that I would need a shower anyway, I stripped down to ‘simple skin’ and carried on with the task. It was actually nice and warm under the water, and I was just thinking I had discovered a whole new, wonderful angle on DIY when I realised that the ‘screwdriver’ was the wrong sort. I only discovered this by ‘Braille’ because even though I had put my glasses on so I could see what I was doing, they steamed up within seconds.

After bending down to pick up the face cloth to wipe them I was caught unawares by the shower nozzle’s counter attack as I stood up. ‘Wham!’ it threw itself onto my forehead.

It was apparently only a small cut, but at the time there was enough of a trickle of blood down my face and in my eyes to be more than a little annoying. Especially as the knock had resulted in my glasses falling off into the shower base trough which, incidentally, doesn’t drain very well in an ankle-deep sort of fashion.

With a pinkish mixture of blood and water in my eyes and around my feet, I couldn’t locate said glasses, or my dignity. At least I had established that the screwdriver needed was one of the ‘star’ variety, so I would need the modified weed digging implement which sometimes works on such screws... if pushed hard enough. Unfortunately this tool was located in the shed… somewhere….

Living in a ‘Headphone Zone’ where no-one actually hears anyone calling for help, and towels have obviously been banned from the bathroom (I didn’t get the memo, but I can only conclude that this must be the case) I grabbed the bath mat and wrapped it around my waist.

Well, almost around. It wasn’t long enough so I had to hold the two corners together above my left hip. I stepped out of the bathroom, ran across the lounge and out across the lawn, just in time to witness the last few seconds of one of our famous Sedgefield sunsets. This did not help my tool-searching attempts in the darkness of the shed, especially without my glasses, but eventually I managed to find the modified weed digger.

Of course by this time my daughter had felt a bit of a breeze from her seat in the lounge and, still listening to ‘Now That’s what I call Brain-dead 173’ on her ipod, sauntered over and closed it… turning the key, just to be sure. You never know what lunatics may be lurking around outside.

After banging on said door loud enough to raise the dead AND the neighbours AND INDEED the neighborhood watch, but apparently NOT enough to cause any of my family to stir and perhaps think that the Head of the Household might be outside dripping wet, cold, bleeding, and naked except for an undersized floor mat, I went round to the front door. It too was locked. How lucky I was to have such a security conscious family.

Fortunately I was eventually granted access. Someone (presumably from the small crowd of vigilantes that had gathered on the road outside our gate to throw stones at me) had the foresight to phone our home number and warn them that there was a wounded, half-crazed, short-sighted naturist standing on the dustbin, screaming blue murder through the window.

“You’ll catch the death of cold running about in the garden like an idiot,” tut-tutted Mrs Ed, when she’d finally persuaded the police they really could go back to the station. “You’d better go and have a hot shower. We can’t afford to have you getting sick when there’s still the ‘Burn, baby, burn’ toaster, leaking deepfreeze and wandering washing machine to be looked at.”