Friday 26 September 2008

18 Sept 2008 Thursday – Apres moi le deluge

Work commenced on the bathroom this morning. The toilet and wash hand basin were removed and the shower cabinet was taken off its shower tray. The lino was ripped up to expose a shockingly badly laid floor. Some floorboards covered with thin board, and some odd bits of wood under where the shower had been. Tomorrow work will recommence and they will decide what to do about the bad floor.
In the afternoon we walked into town. Rain was threatening and after we had done some shopping, including small silver ceramic coffee cups and saucers including a silver stand / holder we had a beer outside a café.
Then the rain came. Fortunately we had a small umbrella but the rain had almost stopped by the time we reached home.

We were watching TV mid evening when Madame from downstairs came up to the apartment to tell me that she had water coming through her hall ceiling.
I felt the joints that had been sealed in the bathroom, no leaks. I checked the sink and washing machine connections in the bedroom, no leaks. I went downstairs to her apartment and she showed me her wet hall floor with the water dripping slowly from the beam. She said that it had started after she had flushed her toilet. I had recently done the washing up, so that too could have been the source.
We went back up to my apartment and I phoned my builder’s wife. To save everyone time, I asked Madame to explain the problem.
S made us a cup of Earl Grey tea with ivy leaf china cups etc and Madame thought that the cups were very pretty. She seemed to enjoy having a cup of tea like the English drink it. We don’t have jumbo-sized sugar lumps en Angleterre though.
Father builder turned up very quickly. He had not been home or had any food, but he got down to investigating. He decided that the problem had happened because his son who had done the work earlier, had forgotten to cap one of the waste pipes. He got on his phone and the son arrived about 5 minutes later. Plastic pipe was fetched and some sealing gunk.
Job done, Madame left with them and the evening resumed its normal calm.

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