On Monday night we hit minus 15 degrees, the kind of cold that sucks the breath out of you - but then the temperatures gradually began to rise, until they hit positive values for the first time in nearly a week last night, leading to ...
The bad news: we woke this morning to discover several centimetres of water swishing around L'Atelier's ground floor: a burst in the water pipe to the outside tap. The water had unfortunately decided that rather than spurting harmlessly onto the grass, it would be much more fun to do a double somersault and flow backwards into the kitchen wall, underneath the plasterboard and out onto the floor. Yes, that would be the same kitchen wall that I recently spent half my lifetime colourwashing ... so when John came leaping upstairs yelling "Burst! Burst! Kitchen! Water! Phone! Wall! Broom! Sweep! Mop! Now!" in his typically morning incoherent way I was not, as you might imagine, best pleased. It's amazing just how many damage limitation scenarios you can play through your brain while you're putting your socks on ...
But the good news: we hadn't yet laid the wooden floor. Truth be told, we haven't even bought it. Right now, it's an empty room. And miraculously, the walls seem to have escaped serious damage. And just as we were finishing the Broom! Sweep! Mop! routine, our lovely Perfectionist came haring down the track, blue lights metaphorically flashing, with the wherewithal to repair the pipe, a tool to make holes at the bottom of the plasterboard to help the insulation dry out, a dehumidifier, and his trademark bag of boulangerie goodies.
Every home should have one.
No comments:
Post a Comment