Not strictly true: Z doesn’t really live in the country in
the extreme rural sense, it just feels like it, as those of you who’ve visited
her will vouchsafe (and be able to confirm at her next blogfest on 16 July).
But I had a small initiation. As you know, one qualifying feature of ‘country’
is lack of mains drainage. Modern septic
tanks take care of this with minimal maintenance and, when it all runs (ha!) according
to design, rare problems. It just so
happened that my visit coincided with not one but two. (I firmly deny any complicity…)
Roses, who lives next door, had noticed a bit of a pong,
which she’d very easily traced to the feed to her tank. Well, two of the five senses were quite enough. So Z’s trusty BMWF (as she calls him) was summoned
to the rescue. BMWF has, I learned,
been an energetic tower of strength (if you can have one of those) around the
Zedary for more years than there are. He
rapidly ascertained that R’s tank flowed into Z’s, so the latter had to be
investigated as the fount (?) of the effluence.
This proved to be untrue, but fortuitous.
Because it turns out there were in fact two separate, quite
unconnected, blockages, one for each (entirely unconnected) tank. This proves how easy it is to build a course
of action on a false assumption – as Kingsley Amis memorably epitomised it, the
‘inverted pyramid of piss’.
Of course, once this had been established, the rest was
easy. Just scoop the water and sludge
out of Z’s pit, so as to find the outlet pipe; dispose of the sludge; rod the outlet
once found; all will then be well.
Except that it wasn’t.
I’m tired now, so I can’t go into the details of how BMWF eventually
discovered that R’s problem was easily solved whereas Z’s requires a whole new
run of outlet pipe to be laid. I’m
dwelling on my small country life initiation, which consisted of disposing of many
gallons of sludge, in a wheelbarrow, down a couple of rabbit holes across the
field. Right, that’s enough dwelling on
that.
The sole reason for this post, actually, is to report that,
when told this story, Z’s friend apparently remarked “sort of Watershit Down,
then?”
Be thankful you were spared today's feat of strength. The place looks tidier, though, I'm sure you'll be impressed.
ReplyDelete"Watershit down" would have made a rather good post title. What a brilliant turn of phrase.
ReplyDeleteZ, I'm impressed, and exhausted, just reading about it.
ReplyDeleteYes, I initially thought that, Liz, but decided to save it up for the punchline.
By the sound of it, you've actually got some wellies now (or is it waders?).
ReplyDeleteSo a nice new herringbone to be installed, no doubt. They do tend to clog up after a century or two.
We're going the other way, into town, next Thursday.
But then, we were on mains drainage here on Dartmoor anyway, so nothing much will change.
Had septic tanks before. Been there, dung that.