A movement in still life...straight out of hell, unable to tell, ...myself whether it's testing me, or perplexing me...
but,
as sure as ball cock's are stumbling blocks, humbling stocks of pain ...10pm, bath over, floodgates opened. The attic tanks decided to raise the roof, being undone only by gravity, which heaved the torrents down to earth like sheets desperately saving souls from their fate, and then slowly seeping down the walls, stairs, bookcases and out through the doors, ...ironically! The hot weather, or more likely, outside works cordon were the probable reasons for my second major flood inside 5 weeks.
Not one but two ball cocks had succumbed to a sudden surge in water pressure, then a dramatic drop-off after the work outside on the road was complete, and my 'geyser-attic' was baptised. Three sides of my house became submerged in an ox-bow-lake form.
Stretching desperately into my loft, trying to rectify the mysteriously misbehaving ball-cock's was something the spine could have done without, as my ladder is out on loan. (I thought, with a slipped disc, how could I use it this year?)
Well, I made do with a kitchen chair, topped with a stool, flattened with 8 books including Hans Christian Andersen's works, and some pastis. Climbing the fairytale-like climbing frame I'd just created, it took me a good 30 minutes to both physically and mentally slide upwards into the attic...and the pain was electrifyingly grape. The geyser attic was surreal, in the 28 degree heat outside, and with a Lee Sharpe article still freshly circulating within my cranium, I tackled the tanks and failed. So, at the late hour, I had my finest, prodding my finger into the guilty pipe, and lessening the flood.
It took me 6 hours to again move my back either forwards, or backwards, and 12 hours later I am here in front of you (know what) typing this.
Have any of you had two floods within two months or two ball-cock's packing up on the same day?
It seems that many things come in 2's or even 3's.
After katrina I know I am the lucky one as my house has held firm in our benign climate.
We have all been reminded in so many ways of the immense power of the natural elements that shape our world in more ways than we know how to deal with.
