Water Torture

Whenever something is wrong in a house it has a distinct knock on effect. Stuff which shouldn’t matter becomes part of the daily abrasion that wears down even the strongest spirit. A constantly dripping tap is one such. Especially when dealing with one girl beginning to feel the loosening of parental bonds that come with her own new life. One wears you down, like water on rock, and weakens you for dealing with the other.

Making a difference in a century old terraced house like ours isn’t difficult; all it takes is money. Regrettably, money is one thing which is perpetually in short supply, despite two full-time incomes coming into the household.

This payday, Angie and I decided to make a small change in the kitchen. The fifteen year old pillar taps over the kitchen sink were running slower and slower and becoming ever more unsteady on their bases. This situation was getting to the point where getting enough water in the sink to do the washing up was taking half an hour. We can’t afford, nor do we have space for, a dishwasher; so we opted for replacing the taps over our old fashioned butlers sink.

These sort of tasks generally fall to me as we can’t afford the plumbers round here, and I am, amongst my many micro-skills, someone who can handle copper pipework; not to mention being quite capable of doing the odd bit of electrical wiring. The only things I really lack to do the job full time is the right piece of paper to say I can. Having started my working life as an Engineer and so learned the basics of wiring, machining and pipework as part of an old fashioned apprenticeship. Notwithstanding; you don’t need all that knowledge to fit a new set of taps, but it helps with knowing details like sealing off the joints with PTFE tape on the fitting threads to ensure there are no leaks – simple stuff like that.

The difference a simple thing like stopping a dripping wonky tap makes to a household is enormous. Almost like a shadow has lifted and the light shines again into a once darkened hovel. Angie is a little more relaxed, therefore so am I; which means I can get on with my writing in relative peace and quiet. “The life and death of a Bill Sticker” Manuscript has picked up, and I know where I’m going with it now. How to engage with the reader and maintain a thread of suspense throughout the narrative. The Cerberus Conspiracy trilogy goes in fits and starts, and I really need time out to bang my head out on the keyboard.

My trouble is that I need uninterrupted writing time to focus on the entire narrative thread. When I can see the story outline in its entirety, everything just flows. Rather like water from new taps really. Wonder what I need to replace in my head to make it all flow like that?