If you have been following my Facebook status updates, you will notice there are two updates related to no water. Yes, I have no water in this house. Scratch that... there's cold water running in the kitchen, but no where else. This means there is no hot water and the toilet tanks don't refill itself unless you go fill the bucket up to take to the tank. Is this a third world country? No, it's freaking the London suburbs!
As a condition of our basically rent-free home in Enfield, Dan (and sometimes me) are fixing up the joint (or as the locals say, "Do a bit of DIY!"). Dan bought a complete kitchen (solid oak cabinet doors, frames, and appliances) on eBay for really cheap. Dan's uncle did the electrical and plumbing bits to get the basics of the kitchen in. So our oven and stovetop (they call it "cooker") work, as well as the kitchen sink. But to install the kitchen sink, the water had to be turned off. When the water was turned back on, only the kitchen worked--nothing else!
Dan's uncle thought that it was just airlock. So before he left yesterday he said to just keep the cold water tap on and water should come out again. At that time we had a little bit of hot water too. By the time Dan came home from work, we had no water whatsoever (except for cold water in the kitchen of course)! He went into the attic (they call it a "loft"), and that tank was completely dry. And since that tank feeds the hot water tank, that became dry as well. Dan tried all the stopcocks for the water, and nothing will fill the tank in the attic. I'm hoping that it isn't a frozen pipe, and Dan doesn't believe it is a frozen pipe. Regardless, we have no water and have no clue when water will be returning, if at all. We are staving off a phone call to a plumber, as that would probably cost us a fortune. Dan's uncle is coming back to check out the problem again.
One thing I have noticed about England and their water--they always have separate taps for hot and cold water in their bathrooms. Occasionally, you'll visit a home with a "modern" bathroom and a "mixer tap". But for the most part, even in the house in Cornwall (built in 2000), the bathroom taps were separate. In the US you'll find these in old homes, like most apartments in NYC. I just find them rather annoying when you want to wash your hands, but most especially when you want to wash your face!!! Do I want to scald my face with the hot tap, or just freeze it and remain frozen the rest of the night as this house is freaking cold 24/7? These are hard life choices I tell you.
In other news... I got your letter Teresa!!! Yay! It felt good to get real mail! Woot! Thank you!
Aside from that, I'm pretty damn miserable right now. :(
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