MARY'S BIT or AN EYEWATERING EPIC
There's a saying in Yorkshire, particularly popular to those in the plumbing profession, that where there's muck there's brass.
Plumbers of course also carry out cleaner work such as, oh, repairs to hydronic heating systems and it is in this connection, no pun intended, that we have contributed a fair amount to our local plumber's IRA yet again. Enough brass, indeed, to provide raw material for at least a trombone for a colliery's brass band.
Truth, they say, lies at the bottom of a well. To be truthful, we prefer not to dwell on the two days last year without water on tap when our well conked out, though certainly it was an impressive reference for the quality of the manufacturer's work to learn via its coded label the dead pump was thirty years old. As those who have been without easy access to potable water will agree, henceforth let us never scorn Adam's ale!
Since then a trickle of other water-related problems have made life at Casa Maywrite interesting in the sense of the proverbial Chinese curse.
To set the scene, readers should picture a boiler that would not have been out of place in the Titanic engine room. Cube shaped with pipes going in and out like the worms in the children's rhyme about worms and pinochle, not to mention various locations on it are ornamented with dials and knobs and levers, all part and parcel of its profound mysteries.
In this particular and literal water go-round we started off with the upstairs heating loop kicking in every time the downstairs loop came on, even though no heat was being called for upstairs. Diagnosis: the upstairs zone valve was jammed open and under the immutable laws of the universe hot water rises.
So the plumber came to call. On his first visit he arrived with the wrong sized parts due to a mix-up at the shop, but the second time all was in order for replacing both valves, a good plan seeing as he was here anyhow and it would save yet another trip should the second valve turn up its toes. The job involved sawing out copper pipe as well as setting valves in. Eric put on his apprentice plumber's hat and held a large coffee tubby to catch occasional solder drips. There was much hammering and colourful language of a comical nature rather than your really ripe, raw stuff, but after a couple of hours the job was done.
About a week later, the loo's feed line suddenly parted company at the joint and water sprayed the bathroom. Talk about pressure! Were it in a hosepipe we could have power-washed siding, quenched a small fire, or dispersed a riot. We turned the line off -- fortunately without breaking the stopcock gizmo -- and until the plumber arrived next day used the fabulously useful for all manner of purposes large coffee tubbie to flush the loo.
All this unwelcome excitement pointed up the prescience of the plumber's observation during the earlier proceedings that at the rate we were going the entire plumbing system will eventually be replaced bit by bit. Malfunctioning plumbing is a trial to be sure but as Flanders & Swann were wont to sing It All Makes Work For The Working Man To Do.
So as we are sure subscribers will understand after the past couple of months don't think us ungrateful but it's just, you know, we'd prefer it if you didn't offer us water biscuits with the cheese board selection.
STOP PRESS
A couple of days after I scribbled the foregoing high winds blew in and blew down a pine tree next door by the garden wall. Most of its trunk is lying in our neighbour's garden with a few branches poking snouts in our direction, but by great good fortune it fell parallel to and between the houses. If it had fallen forward it would have crushed our buggy, if in our direction we'd have little roof remaining if not worse, and if it had tilted the other way the neighbour's cars and/or house would have been damaged. But as a wise man once said to me, all ifs are followed by buts, and in this case it's ... but it didn't.
So in the recent past we've weathered difficulties connected with air and water. Provided we don't have an earthquake or conflagration we shall happily not complete a hand composed of the classical elements. However, as I write the entire state is under a red flag warning, meaning conditions are ripe for fires to start and spread rapidly.
And the ubiquitous they reckon rural life is peaceful!
AND FINALLY
Philip James Bailey once observed that, like clouds, curses pass away. So indeed does this latest issue of Orphan Scrivener, but bear in mind the next will fly in to cloud subscribers' brows on June 15th.
See you then!
Mary R and Eric
who invite you to visit their home page, hanging out on the virtual washing line that is the Web at http://home.earthlink.net/~maywrite/ There you'll discover the usual suspects, including more personal essays, the Doom Cat interactive game written by Eric, and our growing libraries of links to free e-texts of classic and Golden Age mysteries, ghost stories, and tales of the supernatural. There's also the Orphan Scrivener archive, so don't say you weren't warned! Intrepid subscribers may also wish to pop over to Eric's blog at http://www.journalscape.com/ericmayer/ and/or visit the Poisoned Pen
Press author blog at http://www.poisonedpenpress.com/category/blog/
