Well, clearly I underestimated the super powers of Plumber Man. Not only can he walk through solid rock (armed only with a pick axe) and create holes where no holes have ever gone before, he can also alter the Flow of Time. Despite my pessimistic predictions to the contrary, the kitchen sink was indeed available for use when the time came to do the post-dinner washing up.
Admittedly the whole Piping Project wasn’t entirely complete. Plumber Man has one weakness that his evil enemies could exploit to Bring Him Down if they knew about it. He has a genetic mutation that makes him lose his memory whenever he enters the special and sacred place known hereabouts as ‘Bricodepot’. Consequently, as the project neared its end, he discovered that he was missing the final piece that would have completed the Piping Puzzle and opened the door to Soakaway Nirvana.
But still, even though he could not yet cover up the Big Fat Drainage Pipes nestling in the Big Fat Trench he had dug earlier, I was permitted to empty a couple of bowlfuls of water down the sink, and watch in awe as it made is leakless and rapid progress out of the house, around two walls, down into the Big Fat Pipes and out, out, out into terra-not-entirely-firma.
What Joy! No, really… WHAT JOY! Having spent a year doing battle with The Sink That Will Not Drain, and having read many a chapter of a good book whilst waiting for a bowl of washing-up water to make its slow and barely-moving progress down the plughole, out of the house and into god-knows-where (which, of late, has been up through the tarmac in the front yard), it was truly a Sheer and Utter Delight to see water flow away down a Clear and Present Vortex, at twice the speed of light, and with the most satisfying gurgling noises in the whole of Christendom.
Seriously, I want to keep chucking water down the sink just so I can hear that glorious noise. It is music to my house-wifey ears. It is Mozart on drugs. No…it is an unfinished Beethoven Symphony, with a sprinkling of Wagner, and vocals courtesy of Plughole Man (who, as we all know, is the little man who lives down the plug hole, and talks in a deep, gurgly voice to tell off naughty young children who won’t stop playing and GET OUT OF THE BATH!, when it is already way past their bedtime). I am so ecstatically pleased and happy with the efficiently-functioning drainage that, if it was in my power to do so, I would give Plumber Man the Keys to the City (except there is no city near here, and even if there was, I don’t think Simon would want to spend a lot of time in it).
But anyway… back to the story of Plumber Man’s wider mission. Today he ‘popped’ (ha-ha…. 40 minute round trip, not including time spent shopping) to Les Briconautes in Cosne to pick up the final piece of the Piping Puzzle, and within nano-minutes of his return had finished the Pipeness, and got stuck in to refilling his beautiful, be-piped trench, leaving only a small section at the very end uncovered, so that he can Monitor the Outflow over the next few days until he is sure that the water is Soaking Away as it should.
And then, because Plumber Man’s Work is Never Done, he got straight on to the task of installing the shiny new copper pipework from the cellar to the outside of the front wall, so as to create the much-longed for Outside Tap.
And that, my friends, is a tale for another day.
