Water

Water is one of those utilities you take for granted unless, that is, your house is on a private supply as is ours. Three weeks ago we ran out of water - "but it's been horrible and wet" might be the response, yes it has but it hasn't actually put that much rain down, the wetness was usually a damp drizzle. Things weren't helped by the fact that the storage tank in the field is also the source for the water trough used by around twenty cows and you can't ask them to drink less.

We were helped to some extent by being away on holiday for one week which should have allowed the tank in the field to fill up which it did but we still had no water. It's no fun when you have to fetch all the water you need: every litre weighs one kilogram (they are SI units after all) so you really know just how much water you are using. Nipping out to the garden water butt to get a bucket of water every time you want to use the loo makes you think about each flush. Washing clothes meant nipping down to the nearest  lauderette, a bit of a cheat but you can't subject others to too much smell!

This last weekend was spent digging up the feed pipe trying to locate a joint where one of the neighbours had cut it with his spade when sorting out some drainage. I'd misremembered where this was so it took a bit of finding (read as more digging)

New stop valves and access sleeves on our water feed.

With the joint found we split the pipe and tried pushing water back through it - the neighbours are on a bore hole and can pump water around. With all sections clear we replaced the joint with stop valves so that we could access and push water up or down the pipe in either section independently. Except it didn't work! Water would get to our header tank if fed via the bore hole with its extra pressure but not if fed from the field tank. It seemed like there was an air lock that the pressure of the tank couldn't get past.

Got home this evening to find that the system seems to have corrected itself and the header tank is now filling from the field tank. Phew!!

On a slightly different note, one of our cats proudly brought in a fully grown rabbit on Sunday morning. Fortunately I managed to grab him before he got under the bed to begin dismembering it!

Mine! Give me back my rabbit!