My story begins with a very small puddle on the kitchen floor. As it was nowhere near the sink, I blamed Biggles, the border terrier, but ‘you know my methods, Watson. Apply them’. And having applied them, I saw at once that the small dog could not be to blame, because he is reliably house-trained and had been bumbling about in the garden for the previous half hour, lifting his leg hither and thither. So I mopped it up and forgot about it. Then, that same afternoon, another pool of water appeared, slightly bigger and not on the same spot.
I could put up with the loss of a lot for six months, but not of Biggles
Cutting to the chase, we had a leak problem, possibly a major one. Possibly quickly became probably, then definitely, and within the week several parties of men from the council, the water board and two plumbing firms had sucked their teeth, then dug and delved and put down a machine called a mole, which burrowed along until it located a fractured pipe, just within our curtilage. After more visits, investigations and even deeper digging, it was pronounced by Damian from Flooding that we had been ‘basically, sitting on top of a swimming pool for a year or so’.
After that it was in the hands of the experts. It did not take long for them to agree with the insurance company that something had to be done and the word ‘urgently’ was attached. This week, therefore, I have mostly been looking for houses to rent and speaking to Joe, the most reliable removal man in the world, who will take all our ground-floor furniture and accessories to his storage units. He will pack everything, including the books, but apparently most of it is easy.
Moving out is one thing, finding a temporary house is at least a hundred more, and although the insurance firm has been fine about paying for the water damage and contents storage, it is tight-fisted about our half-year’s accommodation. If I had not been able to cash in my Premium Bonds, it would have been a one-bedroom/no office flat on an ex-council estate 20 miles away. Oh, and no pets. I could put up with the loss of a lot for six months, but not of Biggles.
The saga of how we found a very nice house with ditto garden in our own actual village, with help from the local Facebook page, is convoluted but our luck was in/prayers were answered – depending on your point of view – and we move in in a few weeks, when we are told all things have become equal. The garden even has a small outdoor slide for my one-year-old grandson when he comes during his summer holidays. We don’t need a sandpit – the beach is a very short drive away.
One sadness is that none of us will enjoy our garden this year, which is maturing beautifully – the terrace filled with pots full of bulbs ready to flower, climbers, honeysuckle, jasmine and the roses Madame Alfred Carrière, New Dawn and Albertine, reaching for the sky. They are not, thank goodness, digging the garden up, so we can come and sit in it of a balmy evening.
The most serious test will be books. Hundreds will go into storage as, inevitably, the rented house has no bookshelves. How many volumes can I allow myself, when they will have to be piled on window ledges, floors and bedside tables? I will probably end up buying duplicate copies of what I’ve stored but my conscience is easy on that one because every three months I have a cull of extra copies – the ‘not worth finishing’ and ‘how on earth did that book get here?’ – and add them to the sale shelves in Cley church.
Having a horse stand on your toe definitely causes you to be grateful that it wasn’t an elephant
(Hint: if you want ‘used but in excellent condition’ books at modest prices, that is where you go. Form an orderly queue and if you can’t find said church, it may help the satnav to know it is dedicated to St Margaret of Antioch. You can’t go wrong.)
Although a flood is forcing us out, it is not of biblical proportions. I have nothing to whinge about, set against people with all their worldly goods and children loaded into carts, fleeing from a terrible danger zone to God knows where. Some say comparisons with the less fortunate do not actually make one feel better, but I disagree. Having a horse stand on your toe definitely causes you to be grateful that it wasn’t an elephant.
I guess I could view my experience as a holiday but it’s a pretty unexciting one, without even a long sea voyage or a camel ride thrown in, and besides, I will be working. My mother would have called it character-forming. I will let you know.
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