TYPICAL DAY

So, I woke  up early and went to the toilet… not unusual for a man of a certain age, and having flushed the toilet I noticed the flush was carrying on rather longer than normal. I lifted the lid of the cistern to discover the ball cock floating on the top of the water, completely sheared from the armature. Now, this is the type of thing that always happens to me. Of course the toilet will break on the day I’m due to go and fetch the aged parents from the airport! Now, I have a conundrum, I am at this time, holding the armature up to stop the cistern flooding. I realise that this  is only a temporary stop gap or stop cock if you prefer… As I am alone in the house and the only way I can find a solution will require me not spending the whole day holding up the armature, so I have to think! First solution: turn the water off. This is a good idea. Except I don’t know where the stop tap is in the house. I run to the bedroom and collect my phone. I flush the toilet and then hold up the arm, whilst with the other hand I call my brother, who is at the time driving back from Wales. I ask him if he knows a plumber, only himself apparently, and then if he knows where the stop tap is in the house. He says, its under the sink in the kitchen. I flush the toilet again, and run down the stairs and look under the sink…

It’s not there. I run back up stairs and flush and hold the arm again whilst I think again…

I think maybe a coat hanger. I run around the three bedrooms, not one of us has a wire coathanger… Bugger!

I decide I’m going to have to ring my Dad in Cyprus. Luckily, he knows where the stop tap is, apparently in the living room, which is obvious…Doesn’t everyone have a stop tap in their lounge?

As I went to turn off the stop tap I stopped at the spare room to see if any of the coathangers there are wire. Yes. One. A copper one. I bend it around the the armature and  then pinned it  cleverly around the cistern. And Voila, panic over. No water flows.

I rang a plumber and he came around within half an hour.

Strangely, as I stood talking to him, I found out that they went to all the same schools as me and that his brother was a friend of my brother who died in 1974! He even knew his name before I told him, incredible!

So, this is just a typical day, just the way things happen to me.

all’s well that ends well… and it only cost me £60.

Dale ‘M’