“Let’s move to the countryside,” she said. “It’ll be fun!” she said. “All that fresh air and back to Nature stuff. Better than being in the middle of a town with all the smog, noise and modern conveniences like mains drainage,” she said.
‘The Cottage is not connected to mains sewers. It is served by a septic tank and soakaway,’ said the estate agent’s particulars.
“It’ll be fine,” she said. “We can call it Vladimir, because it’s a poo tin…hahahahahahaha!” she said.
And so, with Storm Eunice brewing in the distance and the local bird population treating the rising winds like an avian version of Thorpe Park or Alton Towers, the Damson Cottage toilet, upon flushing, decided to do this…
Actually, it DIDN’T spill over completely, thank goodness, but it was pretty darned close. I felt that heart-in-mouth moment when the level rose and rose and…stopped just short of the level of the toilet rim. The bath made a peculiar gurgling noise. I rolled my eyes. I knew what this meant - there was a blockage in Vladimir’s lines of communication a.k.a they were bunged up with, well, you know…poo. Faecal waste. Human compost. You get the idea.
Now, we’ve been living the country life here for almost 6 years and this has happened only twice before, so in the grand scheme of septic tank living, that’s not too bad. The first time it happened our neighbour rescued us, joyfully whipping out his set of drain rods and regaling us with the hilarious story of when he and a previous neighbour had to de-bung the drains on a Christmas Day afternoon back in the 80s when they were both a bit tiddly on the Christmas spirit, as it were. We duly purchased our own set of drain rods and have used them once since. Time for Outing Number Two.
There are two drain access points on our driveway - one beneath the kitchen window and one next to the studio. Upon lifting both, and recoiling from the heady perfume therein, we duly noted - Lord Malarkey Drain Rod Wrangler and his glamorous assistant Lady Malarkey, Holder of Buckets and Emergency Rescue Standby - that both were full to the brim, and this should not be the natural state of Vladimir’s pipes.
Wellies and gloves on. Prayers uttered for no sudden changes in wind direction. Lights, cameras…action!
There had to be a certain amount of er…preliminary manual removal of er…blockage from Drain One before the end of the drain rods could find purchase in the relevant hole, and there followed then various huffings, puffings, blasphemes, splash backs, gagging and comedy retchings until, praise the saints of bunged drains, the Moment of Magic occurred.
Now, dear reader (if you are still with me) let me tell you that there is NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING, as satisfying in this ENTIRE world as that Magic Moment when the drains grumble and bubble like a stomach after eating the biggest, hottest curry in the world, and the blockage rushes at speed, like a merrily gushing brown river of pungent goo through the pipes and onwards to its destination i.e Vladimir Poo Tin! Seriously, it’s like all the troubles in the Universe lift in that one divine second, like the biggest cosmic constipation being expelled to infinite freedom. Such joy! Such relief! Such satisfaction! Of course, if you don’t have a septic tank you will never experience this feeling of euphoria, and for that you have my deepest sympathies.
(Am I being too graphic? Sheesh, I hope you’re not eating whilst reading this. Perhaps I should have issued a warning at the beginning…nah, you’re used to me by now. You’re a tough bunch…)
We then flushed the drain through with many buckets of water, just to make sure the natural order of free-flow had been resumed, then reinstated the drain covers, consigned wellies and drain rods to the laundry to be cleaned off properly post-Storm Eunice (who, by now, was doing a bit of almost horizontal spitting) before retiring indoors to wash, change clothes and recover with tea, coffee and a restorative bit of cake.
“Perhaps,” she said, “we should put alerts on the calendar for every three months to just check the drains,” she said. “You know, in a pro-active stop ‘em bunging up before they bung up by stealth kind of way?”
She said.
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KJ
KJ