Sometimes it goes that way

The first thing that Mr L said this morning as we woke was: “Do we have any chemicals for the camping toilet?”

Now, I wasn’t really awake and it took a little while to understand what it was that we were talking about. Were we going on a surprise trip?

No.

It’s The Weekend.

The Weekend sometimes brings with it a fit of DIY.

This weekend, Mr L is tackling the toilet. He was joking, he said, it shouldn’t take long at all. I hate it when he says that. It’s like he is inviting trouble.

Every now and again I get a slight insight into why some people are drawn to new build houses. Why perhaps they consider old houses to be more trouble than they are worth…

For seven years we have lived with a toilet that takes ten minutes or more to fill the cistern after a flush. Mostly we manage between ourselves OK but it can be awkward when we have visitors – we cannot ask them to limit their fluid intake, can we? or to hang until they get home…

Anyway – Mr L had a moment of his own insight the other day. Apparently you can get a choking valve to slow down the fill on cisterns in high water pressure areas. What if… what if ours has one incorrectly fitted? We have low water pressure but not so low as to explain this slow-fill phenomenon.  He had a poke around Screwfix, looking for a solution. He found a complete replacement system that should fix all our problems, sent for one, and is fitting it today. At least he is attempting to.

Stage one of the job involved turning up in my studio with a ball float in his hand: “A good job I am doing this now, the ball cock was about to disintegrate and the float came off in my hand – the pipe was completely rotten.” So far, so very good.

Only now, the swearing has started; there’s a strong smell of WD40, the sounds of hammering and power tools cutting, and half of his clothes have been divested in the hallway. In short, the old assembly won’t come off. Nohow.

This job may take a while. I am going in search of those chemicals.  I’ll just turn up the radio to drown out the expletives first.