As I sit here in the warm-and-comfy writing this post, Simon is outside in the cool-and-muddy drilling the other side of a Very Big Hole through our kitchen wall. Eager to refute my earlier (apparently unfounded) inference that he is an inveterate Putter-Offer of Things that Need To Be Done, he is forging ahead with his plumbing endeavours, and, having already fixed the kitchen tap, he is now engaged in the grand project of re-routing our kitchen sink drainage into a newly constructed soak-away at the back of the house. He assures me that the kitchen sink will only be out of action for a few hours, and that it will be back in service in time for me to do the washing up after our evening meal. Deep Joy.
The construction of an effective soak-away, that would take our stinky washing-up water way away from the house to drain inoffensively through the natural filter of our garden soil, involved the digging of yet another long, deep trench. And the unanticipated impediment of a very irritatingly-placed ridge of solid rock, that would have happily maintained our kitchen discharge in an obdurate pool of sog right next to the living room wall, if it had been left to its own impervious devices. Nothing is ever simple.
But, having already dug three quarters of the necessary trench, Simon was not about to be diverted from his goal. Calling upon his special, superhuman powers, and the aid of a Very Big Pick-axe, Plumber Man confronted his rocky nemesis, and emerged sweaty and victorious. Now he is on a plumbing roll, clearly nothing can stand in his way.
Except perhaps the odd little computer-generated diversion. Or a bit of rain.
Also on the list of missions for Plumber Man are the removal of the old hot water heater (and associated Legionella-harbouring pipes) from the kitchen wall, and the provision of two outside taps, so that we don’t have to tromp in and out of the house in muddy boots to fill water containers for the animals, and so that we don’t have to negotiate the treacherously uneven and slippery steps, and cobweb-festooned doorway into the dark, dank cellar every time we wish to turn on the hose-pipe to water the vegetables.
Simon had a go at the second item on this list yesterday, and spent many a happy minute or sixty hunting for screwy-shaped bits of metal and such like, so as to restore the water flow to an ancient tap in the barn, that has been sitting comatose since long before our arrival at the house last year. When he thought he had it sussed, he turned on the water in the cellar and watched in fascination as the old iron pipework exploded spectacularly in a shower of rust and damp disappointment. Ho hum. Back to the metaphorical drawing board. It seems that there is no way for Plumber Man to avoid the installation of a whole new length of pipe-work, and a new tap.
But that is a task for another day. Right now, three hours after Simon first emerged from the attic with his power tools and his trusty Bag of Bits, ready to start work, I am reflecting on the precise meaning, in the current context, of that somewhat non-specific and over-used word ‘few’. And each time Simon wanders through the room, sporting a jaunty expression of puzzlement, and stops to rummage though his arsenal of plumbing miscellany, or engage me in a one-sided conversation about the differences between English and French brackets-and-screws, or the mathematical computations required to achieve the correct rate of fall of a drainage pipe, I can’t help but glance at the clock and silently note the unfaltering passage of that unremitting overlord Time.
I suspect that even Plumber Man, afire with the passion of his mission, and armed with great intellect and his inventory of grey plastic, will not be able to outwit Him.
