Piping up

     Readers with long memories may recall that in early August we suffered a slight ingress of water (a room was flooded). Despite numerous visits by plumbers and so-called drainage experts (clueless men) and the application of cameras and water jets (boys' toys) to various pipes, the source of the problem has yet to be found, rain is still coming in and I am no stranger to the mop and bucket.
The latest investigations produced a lengthy but obscure written report with accompanying pipework DVD (drain endoscopy), but the men who spent a happy morning on the roof and in the garden seemed to think they'd twigged roughly where remedial works should begin.
And today was the day for the excavation. Two chaps turned up (not those who'd made the film and hosed the pipes) and said they were to meet a third man here, "the man who knows whereabouts we have to dig". Oh, said I, who is that?
"Your husband" they said (after calling their office to check).
That was news to me. Mr. C. may be a man o' pairts but shelf-building apart he is not known for his handiness in practical matters, so this was a worrying development. The blind leading the blind - you get the picture.
Next, after further consultation with their office and notwithstanding The Doc's presence or absence, they told me they would need a length of cast iron pipe to make the repair and none is to be had in Edinburgh, so they would have to go to Glasgow!! Even as we speak our men are forging their way west along the M8 to the home of heavy industry, leaving the effete east of Scotland to imminent rupture with its paltry plastic piping.
What this means, of course, is that they will return to dig another day. Should you be passing through the north of Edinburgh and see a garden dotted with giant molehills being made by two young fit men while directed by a third wearing a smart business suit and an air of absent-minded bemusement, you will have found my house. (I may have contrived to be elsewhere, or if the whole thing has got too much for me, be watching the action while singing Eliza Doolittle-like, "The drain can plainly not contain the rain....")

Comments

[Octavo]

Dear Cornflower,

I fear your workmen will have little luck finding cast iron pipe in Glasgow. Most of this once common commodity has been removed by the local neds for transporting to the nearest "scrappy" for cash with which to buy the necessities of Glesca life - "Bucky", chips and assorted abusing substances.
In any case, it's so wet through here today that we need all the pipes we've got!
Good luck though - hope your ingress is staunched soon!

[Deirdre]

Hysterical! My husband is of a similar ilk. Good luck and you are right to keep busy while it is all going on.

[Barbara MacLeod]

Greetings from Glasgow! Your story made me laugh and laugh! I could relate to it so well: the workmen, the roof leak (I hope you don't have any part of your roof that is flat - hopeless in this rainy climate!) and the Man o' Pairts. I have one of these as well with a very similar skill profile.

In situations like this I always do what my mother used to do - get out the baking tins!

[Cheryl]

And what, pray tell, is the weather forecast for Edinburgh these next few days?

[Barbara]

I consider your comments very restrained! I hope the chaps don't get arrested for lugging iron pipes about - if they find any.

[Peter the flautist]

Are you sure you want cast iron (typically used for guttering and down-pipes). I would have thought that if it was underground then ductile iron is what was needed. However as you know Dark Puss is a humble physicist more used to entangling his paws in quarks, leptons and apparatus for the detecting of such, so don't take my suggestion as informed.

[rosie]

Goodness, how frustrating. Do hope all is resovled soon and that you're able to say "By Jove, they've got it!"

[Simon T]

Oh dear, poor you!
But I did chuckle at the Eliza Doolittle image...