Going Dutch

Taking the 9pm North Sea Car Ferry sailing from Hull , partaking of the onboard facilities and splashing out on a cabin with a porthole, pigging out on the breakfast buffet, buying souvenirs for family and friends in the duty free shop, disembarking at 8am and driving fast to Rotterdam, being revived by elevenses of strong coffee and pastries at a canopied pavement cafe, seeking out a prestigious venue for lunching on the best of Nederlands  fare, interviewing suitable candidates and then the return trip accompanied by the successful interviewee amongst the small Dutch Boys skilled in inserting a finger to stem a leak would have worked out much cheaper and easier in logistical terms than actually sourcing a local plumber to attend to the pinhole drip from the old pipe in my boiler cupboard.

The escape of water was so negligible that it may have been going on for days before any physical signs of a problem were noticeable. I first became aware of the slow and faint dripping sound whilst sat quietly at the dining room table early one morning last week. It was difficult to identify and then place the source of the leak because of its insidious nature. The same sound could as easily have been from a dripping tap in the adjoining kitchen, a slash of bird whiting on the window pane or an intermittent single drop of September rain audible through the airbrick in the bay a it fell on the driveway outside.

With intense concentration and straining with unreliable ears I finally tracked down the leak to the very top pelmet of the alcove cupboard which was directly under the aforementioned boiler position. Three streams of perfect droplets were making their way down the woodwork , disappearing behind the large stripped pine door and then percolating through the contents of the cupboard before emerging to splash on the floor.

In closing the kitchen door which when fully open sat against the wall at ninety degrees from the casual cascade I found a dirty yellowish streak of a stain which reinforced the theory that the leak was quite well established.

A washing up bowl, plastic grey type was wedged onto the top shelf of the cupboard to catch the water before it further saturated the contents. A further stainless steel mixing bowl was placed on the floor below. On a regular basis the bowl would resonate when hit with a full drop or the shrapnel from the pelmet. It sounded like a bell signifying the end of a boxing bout. The collected residue was, again,a dirty urine colour and I sincerely hoped that the pipework was not part of the drinking water delivery system.

The plumber who lived a couple of streets away was not my first choice but was the only one of a few contacted who actually responded to my multiple messages for urgent help. He was not available for two days but I preferred to have someone lined up rather than risk not getting anyone at all.

I did not feel it necessary to just shut off the mains supply given the limited amount of water involved in the escape and the restricted potential for major damage. Feeling blindly around the pipes in the boiler cupboard did detect seepage on a joint and I tightly wound a towelling cloth around it in an enthusiatic but misguided attempt to inhibit the leak. The cupboard was cleared of its miscellaneous contents of back copies of cycling and aircraft magazines, part assembled Airfix models (boxed ) and CD's. It was a job that was on the list of chores ironically reserved for a rainy day of the outdoors type.

The tide, temporarily diverted, was just a matter of annoyance and could not be forgotten or ignored being on the busiest footfall route through the house.

The plumber arrived early for the saturday morning appointment. I brought him up to speed on what I knew and I admit I did show off a bit with terminology researched from Wikipedia. The source of the leak was confirmed by the plumber and he set about draining the pipework, dismantling and cleaning up the joint before replacing the washer and restoring the supply.

In the meantime I was shuttling up and down the stairs monitoring the still persistent dripping. This appeared perplexing even to his expert eye.

It took some dismantling of the bedroom floor involving snapping of the laminate and prising up the 90 year old pitch pine boards to shed some light on the stubborn flow of water. Over the preceeding days of the leak every void, every piece of organic material, old bits of carpet remnants under the floor and the dining room ceiling had soaked up the moisture. With the leak mended the ongong dripping was from the slow release of water from the impromptu reservoir within the very bowels of the house itself. It took a full day for the water droplets to diminish and finally stop.

I am now sat looking into the deep, dark, empty  cupboard. It is slowly drying out and I am assessing what is required to reinstate the blistered paintwork, wee wee colour stained emulsion on the walls and discoloured floor. Like emerging from a war zone (as I imagine) it is now hard to comprehend in the comparative calm what transpired in that place

Before I forget I must purchase a passenger ferry fare one way for the small Dutch Boy whose services in plugging a leak were not after all required. We hardly knew he was here. I expect that his family missed him.