What I learned about women from a burst water pipe

‘It’s always me who gets the worst of it,’ said the Fawn, surveying the wreckage caused by the burst water pipe. I did not disagree a) because I would have had my head bitten off and b) because it’s true.

Though I wouldn’t say I was completely useless: who was the first to spot the water gushing through the ceiling of the guest bedroom, eh? And who was the first to find the stopcock using the time-honoured method of running up and down the stairs for ten minutes screaming: ‘Where the hell is the stopcock?’ But it’s probably fair to say that the Fawn bore — and continues to bear — the brunt of the crisis.

In theory a burst water pipe ought to be largely in the male domain. But once you’ve got the man stuff out of the way — move furniture, place strategic buckets, call a plumber and find he can’t come for three days — the aftermath is pretty much woman’s territory.

I’m thinking of the business of dealing with the mounds of accumulated sodden linen, plus a weekend’s worth of unwashed clothes; drying the mattresses; airing the rooms; running a household with a crap husband and two useless teenagers when there’s no mains water.

For a whole weekend we involuntarily conducted one of those TV-style experiments — the Elizabethan family — in which we had to survive without being able to flush the bogs or wash the dishes or fill the kettle except using water laboriously collected in buckets from our neighbour’s outside tap.

This is how it would have been for almost everyone who lived prior to the 20th century. The first flushing toilet wasn’t invented till 1596 — but you only got to use it if you were Queen Elizabeth I.