Monday 8 January 2007

Water - what water?

Too busy yesterday to make an entry.

My life has been taken over by ##### water, or rather the lack of it.

Since Friday night the block of flat’s I live in has had a problem with the water supply. At 8.30 yesterday morning I checked the storage tank on the roof, and it was full. Now this is a massive tank that can meet all the needs of 100 flats for several days. Relief that we will have water.

In the afternoon the Manager of the flats phoned me to say, an engineer from the water company had come to check the mains water supply pressure, and he wanted me to accompany him to talk to the engineer. This was just as I was settling down to watch the Man United v Aston Villa game on TV. The mains pressure was low. I sent the Manager to check the tank. Empty. That‘s #### impossible. Why? It turns out, during the night there is enough mains pressure to fill the tank, then during the day the mains pressure drops, and the water in the tank drains back into the mains. #*#¤#*# . I was then accosted by a member of the committee who manages the Flats, who wanted me to explain to him the what’s and the why’s. Three hours later I manage to get back to my flat.

The really annoying thing is, four months ago another Flat resident (who is by profession a Consultant Engineer) and myself had warned the Managing Committee that action was urgently required to remedy problems existing in the water supply system, but we were brushed aside as trouble makers. Now they are like a beached whale flapping about helpless and desperately needing assistance.

Wish I lived in a Tepee pitched in a field in the Towy Valley in West Wales. No problem with water supplies - it’s always raining so you only have to leave a bucket outside. Also you don’t have to pay for water you don’t get. No problems with central heating leaking, or the pump breaking down - no heating, well that’s not quite right, throw a log on the fire, “smoky in here“. No commuting every day to work - just go once a month to Carmarthen to pick-up your National Security Giro payment. It’s a great life - if only it stopped raining.

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