Oh What A Night

It wasn't my night last night. I had spent the morning cleaning the sitting room of the house I'm staying in - the cleaner hasn't turned up, and I'm sure she's meant to. Anyway, I then went out shopping, and hadn't managed to get any food. By the time I got back I had a lurking headache, so I took some painkillers and had some food.

I helped a friend out over a - if not precisely broken - bruised heart, and had dinner. By the time it came to washing up, I realised I had no water in the house. I went round and checked all the taps and there was nothing, nada, niente. The first main problem was the loo, but I have a fair selection of loos in this house that it wouldn't be a massive problem! The worst thing was the fact that the dogs don't have as much control as one would hope for (little dogs) so I have to pick up messes. All I could think of was how I would wash my hands.

Also, the electricity in the utility room had gone off. My clothes were in the washing machine, which is completely electirc, including the door. I couldn't even get my clothes out, and all my clean knickers were in there. I checked the big fuse box and there was nothing off there.

First things first - I phoned the water company, who assured me that an engineer would phone me back asap, so like a complete divvy I waited up for an hour or so. Should have known better - this is France - they rarely do what they say they will.

Needless to say, by the time I finally made it to (my four poster!!) bed I had a raging migraine, despite the painkillers. I didn't even have enough strength to get up and get a bag of frozen peas for my head.Halfway through the night I heard rattling - there's a litter box in the bedroom and one of the cats had an extremely bad stomach which stank the room out, so I got up, removed the litter box, and then couldn't wash my hands. I found a bottle of Perrier, washed my hands, and went back to bed clutching my head in pain!
This morning was better. The headache was nearly gone. My mum and dad were coming over with a 25l container full of water, so I could at least fluch some of tht down the loos. I had kept one toilet free with a nice full cistern for emergencies, using the old adage "if it's yellow let it mellow..."!

My brain in gear, I set off around the house to find the water meter. The water taps were on - water was, in fact, coming into the house, just not through any of the taps. The builders had water coming through the hoses - it was purely an inside problem.
I solved the utility room mystery - there was a smaller fuse box in there which had obviously tripped at some time during the night. The builders had left a lead plugged into there which must have got wet and tripped it. Sorted. Kind of realised there must be a link between no electricity, no water but couldn't work out where there would be a switch for a pump or anything.

Still no water though. I phoned the owner - I had to wait until a decent time though as she's in UK - it wouldn't really be fair to phone at what would be 7am!

Ah ha - turns out there is a pump, she told me exactly where the switch was, and it all works beautifully!

And I've had some breakfast today, and I will be having lunch too to chase the migraine away and keep the blood sugar up! I think that was what started it off yesterday, and from there things went from bad to worse.

Well, today is a new day - lets hope it's better than yesterday!

NB. Photographs not my own work