How we all laughed as I pointlessly tried to cover the hole with my finger while I screamed "I'VE BURST A PIPE. YES, A PIPE. TURN OFF THE FUCKING MAINS" at the top of my voice.

Once switched off at the mains, the torrent that was doing its best to completely submerge the lino on the utility room floor (no bad thing if you ask me) subsided and I was left with the task of hacking back the wall to expose the pipework underneath, so as to enable access to fix it somehow.

What puzzles me is why some of the walls in this 1930s brick built house seem to be made of Weetabix, and the rest from a type of specially toughened granite.

Needless to say, the wall clutching the water pipe to its innermost bosom was of the granite variety. And I can tell you, they REALLY knew how to hide pipes in those days.

But in a lovely happy yin to our woeful DIY yang, the father of the little friend of Asha who was round to play today (the friend, not the father) turned out to be a plumber, and when he arrived to pick up his little one he had the hole patched up and ready to flow again in a little under 15 minutes -- and had to be pushed to accept a couple of bottles of wine. I hardly need explain how much a plumber can earn on a Sunday evening just for picking up the phone, let alone actually turning out and doing anything.

Now that's karma in action; that can only be payback for something nice I did for someone once.

Now we just have to wait and check the repair is totally watertight before sealing it back into the wall for the rest of its days. I can then get back to the task of fixing up the utility room work surface. The task I had 95% completed when I drilled through a pipe.

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