midnight shenanigans

After a quick trip to the Seacliff Hotel last night to farewell a young lass from the office who's off to find fame and fortune in Darwin, I headed home, ears aching, throat aching, brain aching.

I managed to stay conscious until about 8.30, which is pretty good really before I fell into slumber. Around 1.15 I woke to the sound of a mighty gale, rain pounding down. However the gale and the rain was not outside. It was in my toilet. I rearranged cats and struggled out from underneath my winter layers of quilts and blankets to find a geyser in the loo. Honestly, I was still half asleep and it took a while to work out just what was happening and where it was happening. I was instantly aware that the hall represented the Tiber in full flood (soggy socks), but the actual cause of the inundation took me a while to locate. Actually I had to pad around outside in the afore mentioned soggy socks and a torch to turn the water off at the mains before I had any idea what was going on.

On my return in doors, I discovered this

The bracket that takes the pipe from the mains to the cistern has completely rotted away. I spent the next 90 minutes mopping and soaking up water, moving the books that were my reading material au commode and drying them in the kitchen, saving art work waiting to be hung that was propped up in the hall and generally mopping up.

This morning the damage seems minimal, although young Tony (hail Caesar) is obviously bemused by the proliferation of towels in the hall.

I did make a quick trip to the GP and am now dosed up on penicillin and have cancelled all my, sometime important, Saturday plans to sit at home and wait for the emergency plumber. I've bought a carton of spring water for drinking and teeth brushing, but showering is out (hurrah). So is washing the dishes (not fun, but essential) and the flushing of the toilet (so the garden is now the venue and nature at my demand). Hopefully the plumber can plug the hole when he arrives and I can get some laundry on and do the dishes. Luckily my poor healthy has limited my interest in food, so there's not much to wash. But a general indicator of my diet is how many empty tins of cat food I have. Currently I have 7 (which is about four days in my house). But only one bread and butter plate and a Tupperware container that used to contain lentils.

mmmmmmmmmm.....maybe some vegetable soup or something is on the cards for today.