One of my children (who shall remain nameless) clogged up the bathroom toilet.
At moments like this, I note, my husband (still with his broken leg in a non-weightbearing cast) feels unable to help. It was down to me to clear the blockage.
So, late at night, I had my arm down the loo to try and clear the lump. I flushed the toilet: it didn’t shift. I squeezed again, another flush: still there. And yet again…
It was about 11pm on a cold, mid-February night. I ought to have been freezing cold, as the water rushed repeatedly over my hand and lower arm… but I wasn’t. In fact, it dawned on me that I was quite warm.
Fourth flush: I was getting warmer. The water had definitely heated up.
With the fifth and final flush (thank goodness!) I realised the awful truth: every time the kids flush their toilet it refills from the hot water tank. Those wretched builders we employed (and, more wretchedly still, the plumbers) connected the toilet cistern to the hot water supply!
It has taken four years to discover this fact, which at least proves I don’t often have to put my hand down the toilet. I am grateful for small mercies. (Just not grateful for those plumbers!)
How on earth could the plumbers have managed that? Our place has the hot water taps on the left rather than the right side. We have managed to get used to that but other people find it rather disconcerting. .
I don’t know! … but there is a long list of problems the plumbers left behind, including inaccurate plumbing to the shower in the same room. Methinks they were not the best…