Perfect day for writing yesterday. Wet, windy and raining. Who wants to go out in that, eh? No, best to stay in and crack on with the official business of Being a Writer.
Except…
…as Andy was leaving for work he mentioned the bath had taken a while to empty and was gurgling a bit, and last time that happened it meant the pipes servicing Vladimir (Poo Tin) were backing up and we probably needed to employ the drain rods. He’d deal with it ‘later.’
Well, I thought, it shouldn’t be up to Andy to deal with these things. I am perfectly capable of wielding a set of drain rods and shifting a blockage. After he’d left for work, then, and despite the inclement weather, I togged myself up with wet weather gear and wellies, and ventured out in my unofficial capacity of Drains Inspector. I’d do this, quick sticks, and then head indoors for my planned writing day.
Drain One was, indeed, backed up with unmentionables. Drain Two less so, but still fuller than it should be, because what it should be is empty. Therefore, I gathered the drain rods and set about screwing them together. Quick job, thought I. Bit of a poke through with the plunger and ‘whoosh!’ All gone!
Three quarters of an hour later, after careful pushing and shoving, and twiddling and wiggling, I had made progress amounting to 0%. Annoyingly, I had lost the plunger off the end of the leading drain rod because it had unraveled itself. I had achieved personal saturation (thanks to the rain, nothing more sinister) of around 65%, and I was a bit cold and windswept. But hey! People cope with worse conditions, right?
I called upon my neighbours. ‘Could I borrow your drain rods, please? I’ve inadvertently lost my plunger.’
Don duly handed over his drain rods. ‘I’d help, but we are just off shopping,’ said he. I assured him I would be fine, and I promised NOT to lose his plunger, too.
Ten minutes later, I had lost Don’s plunger.
And having made the promise to NOT lose it, I felt duty bound to retrieve it, or at least attempt to retrieve it. The trouble was Drain One was still full to the brim and I couldn’t see a thing because of all the, well, you know….doings…
‘I know,’ thought I. ‘I’ll empty Drain One manually.’ This seemed like an excellent idea! I got a bucket and set about shifting well, you know…doings…from Drain One into Drain Two which is about 20 feet away. Reader(s), I did this for nearly an hour. The level of Drain One dropped by 0%. As fast as I was trying to empty Drain One, it was filling up again. There was something seriously wrong occurring in the world of Physics that I didn’t understand despite earning a grade B at O level.
By now I was beginning to lose the will to live. I was wet, frustrated and a whiff of ‘Eau de Sewage’ was lingering upon my person so much that I felt I needed to clean all the door handles I had touched with anti-bacterial wipes. I decided to have a cup of tea and regroup.
Do I call Dynorod? Do I employ the new and extremely powerful pressure washer and probably cover myself in…well, you know…? Do I want to make things way worse than they already are?
Luckily, my son-in-law was available to come to the rescue. There is nothing Ollie won’t tackle except picking up a cat. I called and spoke to him and Heather. I think they must have taken pity on my bedraggled rat fashion look and the fact I was beginning to sound like a woman on the edge of breaking. ‘I’ll just get some bits together and I’ll be there in three quarters of an hour,’ said Ollie.
In the meantime, I finished my tea and went out for another round of futile action. I tromped across the wet and muddy field to Vladimir and tried to lift the three lids to see if I could go at the problem from a different angle, so to speak. At one point I looked up at the sky and shouted something like, ‘Oh come on, Universe! Cut me some slack, eh?’ You can do that. Shout in fields. It’s very cathartic. I tried using the swizzle attachment of the drain rods down various orifices, but to no avail. It was still raining. And windy.
Ollie arrived with a new set of drain rods. He set to. He ascertained there was no blockage between Drain One and Drain Two, so the problem must be between Drain Two and Vladimir. He lifted Vladimir’s lids and all we could see was an empty void (because the tank had, co-incidentally, been emptied just the previous day) and barely a trickle of well, you know, doings, escaping. ‘Right,’ said Ollie. ‘Two sets of drain rods needed.’
He stationed himself at Drain Two, I stayed with Vladimir. One by one, the drain rods were attached to each other, forming the longest drain rod chain in the history of Damson Cottage. Ollie shouted that he could definitely feel a substantial blockage. There was a lot of grunting and heaving as he shoved it slowly along the pipe. I could hear gurgling up my end, and the trickle of doings varied between gentle flow and drip, drip, drip.
And then I could hear something grating just below the surface of the muddy field. The end of the drain rod chain was nearing and pushing something ahead of it. And then, miraculously, there was that magic moment that all blocked drain people wait for, and the doings suddenly gushed forth like the Devil’s own vomit!
‘Success!’ I shouted across the fields.
‘Hurrah!’ shouted Ollie.
And amongst all the gushing, I saw what looked like a piece of rock about the size of a house brick whoosh from the pipe like Indiana Jones in that scene from the film when he shoots out of the top of a mountain waterfall in a small truck thingy! Goodness knows how it got into the pipe, but it was now out.
Ollie retrieved the entire double drain pipe chain without losing the plunger. I rushed to inspect the now empty Drain One and felt enormous joy to see Don’s plunger in the bottom. I retrieved it and gave it a good wash, my promise re-instated. Drain Two was also empty and never was such joy felt!
Various gloves and waterproofs went straight into the outside bin. One has to recognise the limitations of the powers of laundry when it comes to these events. Drain and Vladimir lids were reinstated, boots and drain rods were hosed down, and I made Ollie have a coffee and a couple of buttered crumpets before he went home. Heather later told me that he’d called as he was on his way to report he was ‘covered in sh*t!’ The whole event took just shy of four hours of my writing time. And by the time I’d had a very hot bath and hair wash, and some consolatory toast and marmalade, I decided I was too tired and achy to do anything other than finish a book I was reading.
What a hoo-ha! But Ollie was a star and I owe him some beers.
On a less smelly and disgusting note, whilst I was busy drain clearing, New Puppy was busy being four weeks old yesterday. Here is her latest picture, taken during the brief moment when she wasn’t chewing on her brother’s ear.
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