We were away in warmer places when the snow first came to England this winter. Since we’re so poorly insulated its presence makes little difference to the temperature in this house. We’re often able to see our breath in front of us. It’s like Stonehenge with carpet. I worked in Nottingham on Monday and then went over to Hull. Both cities had a really good covering of snow but there hadn’t been any in Leamington when I left and there was none when I returned on Tuesday evening. However, there was a substantial snow fall on Tuesday night. Rather than risk the snow and ice plus hills plus bicycle equation I put on my walking boots and walked to the gym. It was a lovely walk and since few people were daft enough to be about at that time I was the first to break the snow and hear it crunch beneath my feet. I was also the only person in the gym which was great. I’m at my most intolerant in the gym and like to have the whole place to myself. It was equally empty the next day. On the Thursday when I removed the plug after my post-gym bath dirty brown water suddenly belched out of the bidet, filled it and spilled onto the carpet. I quickly put the plug back in the bath. Since the speed at which I process information is quite slow I pulled the plug again, watched another belch explode onto the carpet, returned the plug and left it, thinking I’d attack the bidet with the plunger later. However, ten minutes later, when I went downstairs to the kitchen I found a steady stream of water coming from the ceiling. I pulled at the damp paper on the ceiling and could see that the water was coming from several different patches on the ceiling. I ran through my usual DIY repertoire by swearing and allowing my heart to sink to the floor and then cleared the things beneath the dripping and positioned buckets in their place. The water appeared to be coming from a point directly below either the end of the bath or the toilet so I returned to the bathroom. I could see that the water level in the bath and the bidet were unchanged, as it was in the toilet so I pulled at the side of the bath but couldn’t see a leak. I then searched on the internet for local plumbers and rang six. None of them answered the call and I left increasingly desperate messages with each one I called ; “Hello, I have water pouring through my kitchen ceiling and, although not trained in these matters, I’m sure it shouldn’t be doing that. Help”. After a month off work I was trying to ease myself back into things by writing a report on a man who beheaded his daughter’s pet rabbit before trying to kill his wife but it was impossible to concentrate because every five minutes I felt obliged to go downstairs and look at the ceiling to see if it was now on the floor and look at the water level in the buckets. It was only six hours later that I heard my phone ringing. It was the wife of a local plumber calling to see if the problem was solved. Her husband needed to go and visit his mother in hospital but if I was in desperate need could come to me instead. Obviously a small moral dilemma crossed through my mind but I ignored it and asked how quickly he could be here. By this time the smell of damp plaster had filled the house. Paul, the plumber, was here only ten minutes later. Since the front door was frozen shut he had to enter the house through the garage door. He told me his mother had been in hospital since May and he'd run out of conversation in June so was pleased for the call. He looked at the ceiling, made some noises of amazement and then proceeded up to the bathroom. Since he is a plumber he knew that there was little relationship between where the water was coming from in the kitchen and the source of the leak in the bathroom. He quickly found the source at the plug end of the bath which was ten feet from where the water was leaving the floor and was confident that the water was failing to leave the house because pipes outside were frozen. He suggested an inspection of the pipes outside and twitched his head to beckon me to follow, like Daddy’s little helper. We went back down to the garage and he grabbed a ladder that was hanging on the wall; “Can I use your ladder to save getting mine from the van?”. “Eh? I own a ladder? How long has that been there?” I wondered. It had been left to us by Basil. Since he intended to get up on our roof, which barely holds water, I thought the ladder breaking could be a blessing and save him from killing himself by falling through the roof . He went up on the snow covered roof to examine the pipes which turned out to be frozen solid. I stood at the top of the ladder and peered onto the roof, anticipating his swift descent. Usually when people say "Look at this", they mean "Come here and look at this" but I nodded and murmured to indicate I could clearly see and understand what was wrong with our plumbing. There was some pipe-work out there which we didn’t need, but, regardless, was only meant to be indoors and that was why they had froxen. He questioned why a plumber would do such a thing so I told him about Basil’s love for DIY. He got a blow torch from his van and defrosted the pipes, took them apart, banged lumps of ice out and out poured my bathwater from that day and possible several previous days. He then returned to the safety of the house and punctured our kitchen ceiling with a screwdriver so the water came out like a tap rather than a shower head. That was the problem temporarily solved and the water soon stopped coming from the ceiling. There was a brief discussion about Basil and the ‘Bailey’s The Furniture People’ shop. Paul’s mother-in-law had once bought a bed from the store which had a mirrored headboard with a radio built into it. I told him our whole house once looked like that. He also recalled how wonderful the store’s Santa’s Grotto was. He asked if we could manage without the bath overnight and left. On Friday he returned to remove the pipes that shouldn’t have been there and disconnect the bidet to prevent it all from happening again.
If you're going out in the snow be sure to take two lumps of coal, a carrot and a scarf with you. Always be prepared.
