Dramatic events at Blog Towers yesterday as first our electricity and then our water supply fails, the latter not a cruel coincidence but a consequence of the resolute leccie contractors from Balfour Beatty digging up the street.
After struggling all day at around five their foreman tells me that they have discovered that the main cable right along fifty yards is a write-off so the whole street needs to come up not just a couple of judicious holes. Wistfully I say that they "obviously won't get that done today" but he looks me coolly in the eye and states unequivocally "Well, we will have to" and, sure enough, after desperate pick-axe and shovel work all evening, at midnight they reconnect and likewise the water people. I hope they were on at least "double-bubble" and maybe a bonus for getting it done quickly (because I'm not paying anyway) as this was heroic work in terrible wind and rain.
It was especially uplifting to see the surgeon-like delicacy with which the electrician stood at the bottom of a muddy hole in heavy rain under a feeble light to connect it all up just before it turned Sunday (perhaps they were strict Sabbatarians? Or did Mrs Blog's judicious distribution of tea - from bottled water heated by gas - play a part?). Meanwhile I spent the evening reading a book, pausing after each chapter to recharge my wind-up torch.
My post title from the Ancient Mariner (Water, water, everywhere,/
Nor any drop to drink) is apposite as we had no tap water in spite of the extensive local flooding. I have previously mentioned the author Samuel Taylor Coleridge's likely bipolar disorder in this post.
