Why We Must Move House IMMEDIATELY

Whilst washing up this evening I noticed a slightly unusual aspect to the kitchen sink. The tap, one of those swivelly jobs, appeared to have become more wobbly than swivelly, listing at an unlikely angle and threatening to disengage itself from the twin basin doobry. A loose washer appeared to be the culprit. So being a woman of many parts I attempted to clean the accumulated grunge from the part and womanfully screw it back into place. To no avail. Bugger, I thought and deftly stuck two fingers up at the offending part. Again to no avail. It just looked at me, smirking I think, and to emphasise its point, leaned over even further. Drastic action was needed.

‘Help!’ I cried to my beloved, ‘we have a pending plumbing disaster!’

My beloved, being a man sort of chap, had already clocked the problem and chosen to ignore it. But at hearing my distress arrived in next to no time (about half a hour) at the scene of the crime.

‘We need a new tap,’ he declared. Sometimes it is hard not to have respect for these people of deep insight. He opened the cupboard under the sink and peered in. ‘Hmm.’

Then, what I was really dreading happened. He remembered. Funny, for he is a man who can’t remember the simplest of things, like the location of keys, the names of his children and where he lives. Yet he actually remembered an inconspicuous event that must have happened over ten years ago.

‘You fitted this tap,’ he declared. My mind raced. Should I simply deny this? Should I make up a long and complex story about a plumber arriving whilst he was out? Should I make up an even longer and more complex story about how it must surely have been an alien inhabiting my body who could perform such outstanding feats of plumbing? Yet, fool that I am, I confessed.

‘Good, well you can fit another one then.’ Ha, well, no. Or ha, well, yes. But my days of being the building dogsbody are long gone and I have no intention of reviving them. Studied forgetfulness is my policy now. I can no longer recollect how to plumb the house (let alone a tap), I also refuse to understand wiring of any description, carpentry, plastering (which actually I was crap at), and I certainly know nothing about those little plastic grommets that haunt every household task.

However I had my trump card up my sleeve –

‘With this shoulder? I don’t think so.’ And I held my recently injured and physio-tortured shoulder and winced convincingly. A few tears of pain trickled down my pallid cheek.

‘Oh, right, well I suppose I’ll try and do it,’ he grumped. What a hero. Hurrah for men! I only hope he does it very very soon because if he doesn’t the tap will break, the kitchen flood, we will have to wear Wellington boots, then travel by rubber dingy around the ground floor. Finally we will be scuba diving in order to reach the Shreddies. ‘I’ll sort it tomorrow,’ he said. Double hurrah.


But I know what will happen. They won’t have the right sort of tap, fittings etc at our local DIY emporium. So we will have to buy a new sink. But that won’t fit into the countertop so we will have to buy a whole new set of kitchen units. But they won’t fit in the kitchen. So we will have to buy a new house. Ultimately the only solution is to move house immediately, without further delay and forthwith. Any offers on rambling cottage with pending plumbing disaster? (Sitting tenants include two teenagers, a snot-filled cat and not-as-forgetful-as-expected academic).