Tempting Fate

On 17th Feb at 12:46 I made a singularly ill advised Tweet:

Ha! What do you call it when everything works? Oh yes. Rob is in the house....

Since then everything has broken. Water leaks too numerous to count, a broken heating system that cost a huge amount (wince) to fix. Cars that have needed new bits. And this morning our neighbour appeared on the doorstep with the less than welcome news that water was pouring from our loft.

Oh good.

Turns out that one of the ball valves on the header tank for the heating system was leaking, and the overflow was doing just what it should, which is nice. Fortunately I’m equal to this particular task, and so I went off to buy spares. Since I had to turn the water off, and there are two tanks in the loft, I replaced both ball valves at once. Apparently the practice of having a big tank of water in the loft is a curiously British thing that dates back to the Napoleonic wars, where there was some concern that the French could invade and cut off all our water. Or something. Actually, I heard that in a pub, so it might not be true.

Either way, there is nothing quite like spending your holiday banging your head against beams in the loft, whilst balanced perilously on a joist and trying to both tighten a leaking connector and avoid putting your foot through the ceiling.

While I was out buying valves I thought I’d get a replacement bath plug, because the one we have is looking a bit elderly. This way I could add some value to the day, and come out of it slightly ahead. The new one was very well packed, in a bag, in a bag, in a bag with tape wrapped all round it. I spent several careful minutes removing all the layers and throwing them away. Then I found the plug was the wrong size.  I’m never going to Tweet again.