I've had a bath

After having no hot water in our bathroom other than the (electric) shower, it was blissful this evening to lay up to my chin in hot perfumed water that bubbled away care of my over-the-bath-spa device. Paul and I can't remember when we discovered that a joint in a pipe had been leaking steadily for a very, very, long time.For so long in fact that the substrate beneath the quarry tile floor had been eroded away and the floor had started to subside. This had been hidden from view as the pipe was behind the tumble dryer in our utility room. The joint was copper to lead and I was led to believe it would take equipment I didn't have to mend it. It must have been nine months or more ago, I was still at university, I didn't have the time to do anything more than cut out the bad section and cap off the copper pipe to stem the dripping. We all settled down to washing our hands in cold water and only having showers. In our house nothing ever seems to get done immediately. For one reason or another (and quite often no reason at all) it seems to be an unwritten law that we start a job then let an unreasonable length of time go by before it is finished. Money, ill health, and having better or more fun things to do stand between us and having a home where there aren't any outstanding major jobs.

Today though some inner rage and frustration took hold, I wanted a bath! Could I get the old immersion heated going again? It has remained walled up like some miscreant in a nunnery wall since the plumbing was overhauled when I moved in. I did try to resurrect it , but 21 yrs is a long time to remember exactly what was disconnected and rerouted where. I do realise that there will be those of you who would have removed the tank when it was no longer needed, but I see this and the remaining lead pipe as a nice nest egg in scrap metal for my old age. There will be even more of you who just don't understand the whole concept of doing without the hot water for a year, why for goodness sakes didn't you just get a plumber in? Ah well, money............................ Giving up on the immersion heater I turned my thoughts to putting in a new length of pipe up from the utility room to the bathroom, simple. No. Once I had the side of the bath off it became apparent that I would have to take the bath out if I wanted to get any piping up through the ceiling grrrrrrrrrr.

But desperation only strengthened my resolve. Forget Superman or 118 when you need help, the only way to go is to Google it. Now, I am not sure to be very pleased that the answer to my problem was so simple, or really annoyed that I hadn't found out sooner. All it took was a ten minute walk to the plumbers merchants, hand over £6.99 , then return home with a fitting made to attach lead pipe to copper - duh! The usual assortment of Laurel and Hardy moments ensued, but eventually several sopping wet towels later I emerged damp, grubby and victorious.

Splish, splash I will be taking a bath (a lot!)