And the waters flowed forth

Normally I would have attended uni today. I was up and preparing to go. I’d had my relax in front of Breakfast, had my first cup of coffee and my toast. I was in the bathroom, brushing my teeth when I heard it. The unmistakable sound of a waterfall.

I thought the poodles were playing some odd sort of game with my dressing gown outside the door. This isn’t strange. I generally leave a pile of clothes outside the bathroom door so they can wrestle on them. They enjoy it a lot. Generally, having finished their game, Day-z will curl up and have a snooze before I emerge. She will then dart across the hallway as if the space she was in had simply changed into something horrible. It’s any noise, of any kind. Makes her jump a mile. Carmen, on the other hand, will only move if it’s absolutely necessary. And not always then.

Anyway, the noise was getting louder so I turned the tap off and went into the corridor. I could quite plainly hear rushing water and looked down the stairs. A stream of water was pouring from the ceiling to the two bottom steps. And not just in one long stream. It was a curtain of water. Could have been beautiful in other, more appropriate circumstances. Like, outside.

I stood there for a bit, shocked and frozen solid. I stared at Day-z, stood just beyond the gradually growing pool at the bottom of the stairs. As I stood, the water started to slow and I almost sighed with relief. It meant it was the waste rather than a supply pipe. This set me in motion, leaping over the sodden bottom steps and into the laundry for the dog towels. These are four towels I use to dry the poodles. I spread them all over, soaking up the water. I left the last bits to drip down and went for the phone. As I reached across the prone body of Carmen, I realised she hadn’t bothered to see what the kerfuffle was about. Fast asleep.

Anyway, jumping onto yell.com (the Internet is WORLDS better than some stupid telephone book) I found a plumber and rang. He could have a guy out in about two hours. I realised I wouldn’t be going to uni. I made a second coffee and watched Breakfast from the dry lounge.

About two hours later, Pete arrives. He’s the plumber. He had a good look around, moaned (quite rightly too) about the ridiculous bathroom and rooted around under the sink. His face then brightened as he announced he’d have it fixed in no time. I left him to it and went back to the lounge, keeping the poodles company and using my Netbook for uni work.

It took less than half an hour! The problem, Pete explained, was the bit that collects things. The cover had worked loose and the water had just poured from the plug hole to the ceiling with gay abandon. To be fair, he didn’t actually say ‘gay abandon’. He did say he’d have to charge the full rate because I’d gone through the switchboard.

It irked, not because of the cost, but because I could have fixed it. That’s the trouble with having a bathroom you hate. If anything goes wrong you assume it’s going to be the hardest to get at bit and will take three tradesmen and a crane to fix.

So, no uni, no commute. Instead I worked on researching my dissertation as well as finding some Open Source stuff. And if you ignore the rain, it’s been a very pleasant day. The real rain, not the rain coming from the ceiling.