More spring excavation (with pictures!) (by alaric)

After the recent flood, the spring stopped working again. So once more, we went up into the field to try and dig up the pipework.

To recap, last time it stopped, we pulled out the ancient map my grandparents had made when setting up the spring plumbing in the field, and started trying to find either of the two header tanks. We figured that checking the state of the header tanks would be a good way to narrow the problem down. We didn't find either tank, but we did find a part of the pipework. Amusingly, it had a large iron stake nailed through the ceramic pipe, an earthing point for a nearby overhead electricity line. This made it easy for us to life away a broken of shattered pipe and observe a healthy stream of clear water down the thing, indicating the problem was further downhill; but the thick clay was holding the shattered pipe together perfectly well, so we put it back again and carefully packed it down.

Failing to find the header tank in good time, after having spent a lot of time digging around in heavy clay to try and exhume it, we connected a compressor to the pipe where it emerged from the ground by the house, and blew air up it. This caused air to bubble from the ground at a point in the field, but when the compressor was removed, a lot of mud spurted out of the pipe followed by clean water... it had clearly disturbed a blockage. So we considered it fixed for now.

But anyway, recently it failed again. And since there's no mains water available at the moment, this is a bit of a blow.

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Of Tears, Chickenpox and Vegetable Ressotto (by sarah)

This morning I broke down in tears - I knew it would happen at some point - in fact I was amazed that I got to almost a week without it happening. The pressures of having my home ripped apart and wondering if it will ever go back again was just too much. That and the fact the back refused to extend our overdraft and didnt even give us a chance to explain and all at the front inquireys desk 🙁

I did loose it a bit and demanded of the woman 'well what are we supposed to do now?' She then informed us that if we incure any charges over it then come back and tell them and they might not actually take said charges - sigh. This is all becuase I was supposed to collect payment from customers on Friday which obviously did not happen - grrr.

Still on the plus side it turns out that Jean hasn't got a bad tummy from the flood water but instead has chicken pox - in hind sight she was refusing to drink the tap water and informed me that it was errrr and hit the bicker repeatedly away and in fact got upset when I drank it to show her it was yummy water. I am actually quiet relieved about this.

The other bonus about today was that we traveled to a clients house today for a shower (blessed be the shower and all that lovely warm water and tap water - joy oh joy!) and the most wonderful vegatable resotto. It was simply fantastic food and this astonished me as it contained one of my dreaded foods - leek. I detest leek thanks to a chocking insident when I was in the about 10 but this tasted divine and the leeks weren't chewey - I never realised leeks could be non-chewey! 🙂

Concerned (by sarah)

It is sheeting it down outside agian, raining so hard that visibility is pretty pour and I've been watching the waterfall become more viscous since about 7:30 this morning. I looked at the flood defenses we've put up and realised that half of them have slumped down during the night and are fat all use.

On top of that the poor old Highways Mantaince peeps were a bit too efficient and when clearing the road that runs past the end of our drive they managed to scrape away the 'sleeping police man' other wise known as that dam great lump that every body grounds their car on at the entrance to the drive. This is bad news as it was a very effective deterient of the two rivers that appeared instead of the road (seeing as we are at the bottom of a little vally and the road goes up and down the valley).

This means that water and rubble and leaf mulch and mud and probably the odd cow are now going to go zooming striaght down the drive way towards us and our megre, pathetic little defenses - this means if there is a repeat of Friday even more water will be spewing forth into our home - sigh.

The Big Clear Out (by sarah)

We have electricity agian! And thanks to three helpful volunteers we now have no stinky carpet (well its outside at least) and no sticky sofa bed (also outside).

This was lots and lots of hard work - the bad news was that we found some mould on the kitchen cupboards so they have to go too - not sure how we're going to handle that one to be completely honest!

I'm thinking people coming to visit who like DIY? I'll see exactly what the insurance peeps say first though I think.

The down side is that the village bowsers appear to be missing still - this is currently being blamed on the fact that the 'lads' who are delivering all this stuff are liverpuddlians and therefore are lost - I'm assuming this is becuase they have no maps extra of the area and have never been here before rather than it being a slight on the navagational skills of those in Liverpool!

Our voluteers did well in that they also helped remove Barbaras carpet too which after all the effort of drying and sucking out of water - is in the end being binned - sigh.

Today the saddest thing was seeing all the appliences moved out of the house - these are all things we associate with living together - the fridge freezer we got when we moved into the Essex flat and the rest has been got since we moved here and therefore isn't exactly old 🙁

I'm not sure if Al's written about the flood defenses yet but tonight we put them up 'just in case'.

I've stopped throwing up aswell - though I still feel a bit nuaes especially when peopl started talking about having a botulism shake for lunch whilst pointing at the disgusting froth issuing forth from the carpet.

We're getting there - there is still lots of laughter and hope - well sort of - sigh.

Out of Action (by sarah)

I've been puking and the other and its not fun, feeling freezing cold when Al asures me its warm and then feeling the shards of glass twisting in my gut. I start to feel better and try to get out of bed only to go dizzy with a head that feels twenty times as heavy as it is and a tingling all over - suddenly hot and disorientated.

What I feel slighly guilty about though is that I have finially got my hands on the Harry Potter book and resent having to stop reading for the next wave of cramps - boiling hungry eats at my insides but unfortunatly its no food at the mo as I just spew it all back up again - sigh.

poor Alaric is now attempting to work on his clever rig of internet and generator etc... with the thought that he is now on his own with trying to clear downstairs - I mean I know I couldnt do any of the heavy lifting anyway but at least I could do the small things like clearing off cabinates - now I can't even do that.

Plus he has now lost quiet a bit of work time.

Oh well I suppose I'll just have to continue ready - I swear the woman arranges for these books to come out when I'm sick!