This week has not been without incident. I arrived early on a Friday morning and my sister and bro in law were at the flat to greet me. All lovely and nice to get indoors but as soon as I stepped in I said where is that water coming from? shock horror we all spotted it was coming from the cupboard where my water tank is housed. Opened it up and water spraying everywhere. Turned the mains off. My bro in law was horrified. That wasn't happening when we arrived. Think on that. It was a burst pipe, an old one that was obviously due to go bust and it happened when we were there. I dread to think what would have happened if it had gone when nobody was around….
So frantic phone call to My Man who had done the bathroom for me (more of which later) and he came charging round, spotted what needed to done, shot off and got me a new attachment and fitted it. We then removed all soaked objects from the cupboard aka My Glory Hole and put towels all over the floor to soak up the wet.
After all that we needed coffee so we did.
I looked at my lovely new bathroom and was delighted with it. I had made the decision to have the bath taken out, arthritic knee was making use of problematical, and have had new sink and loo (called a comfort loo as it is higher than the norm), it is very comfortable and the seat does down very slowly and gently. I keep playing with it. I must stop.
I have grab rails and a seat so I could sit and read in the shower I suppose if I covered my books in a plastic bag but think this is probably not a Good Idea.
Later on that evening when all was quiet and I was SO cold (had been in 40c heat a few days earlier) decided to have a shower. Cue groaning noise, shower not me, trickle of water and nothing. So back on the phone to My Man who came out the next day, took everything to pieces and simply could not work out what the problem was. He felt that perhaps he had damaged something inside while doing the work on the room so the lovely person that he is went off and bought and fixed a new shower for me. However, he could not do that for me until the Monday when I was in London and as I was now bathless and showerless I perforce had to make do with the sink.
Lovely time with family, great to hug my girls and play with them and generally have a wonderful time. Drove home and it was tipping it down and I was going along the M11 (mistake) and lorries were chucking up dirt and grit and yuk and my windscreen wipers were going berserk and it took me three hours to get home. Decided hot shower was in order and all was well.
I found as the week went by that I just could not get warm. At one stage I was watching the cricket (of which we will not speak) with the heating on, two pairs of leggings, socks, jumper, scarf, a rug over my knee and a hot water bottle at my back and I was still shivering. And of course what I wanted more than anything was a Hot Bath. The Law of Sod. My kind neighbours said I could use theirs any time I liked and as they were away over the Easter weekend I thought I would take advantage of this kind offer.
Another mistake.
Had bath, sloshed around in bubbles and then Tried to Get Out. I couldn't. I could get no purchase, my dicky knee would not let me kneel up and I sat and pondered what to do. In the meantime one of the cats walked in, sat on the toilet and looked at me. No offers of help, not even a paw which I thought was a bit much. So we sat and looked at each other for a bit and I thought well Elaine you had better do something. The bath was fairly shallow and low to the ground so I pushed myself up on my two hands behind my back until I was nearly level with the top of the bath and then tipped myself sideways and slid oh so gracefully (not) in a heap on the floor where I lay for a moment and giggled. I mean what else could I do?
This event proved I was right to have the bath taken out. Definitely.
Since then I have washed, ironed, hoovered, sorted out clothes for charity shop, done a trip to the Recycling Centre aka the TIp, paid bills, caught up on correspondence and generally had a madly exciting time. I now sit here with a cup of tea and ponder that a few weeks ago I was flying in a sea plane to Whitehaven beach on Hamilton Island, ferrying across Sydney Harbour, lying on Bronte Beach and generally pottering around in the WARM. A few weeks prior to that I was slobbing around the French Polynesian Islands. 'sigh'
But really I am glad to be home. It just takes a bit of getting used to that is all.
Au reservoir
PS if anybody is madly interested I will up some pics of my bathroom. Don't all shout at once.
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