Just a yin and a yang or a couple of pints please.

New Year’s Day. Taxdodger and his girlfriend had gone home, the washing up was done and the year was going smoothly. Then we noticed that the sink was emptying very slowly, we ignored it hoping it would fix itself and at this point had no inkling of the bother it would cause. The next day bleach was poured and that would be the end of it. It wasn’t the end of it, the sink was still very slow to empty, I dismantled the trap expecting to find a congealed mess in the u bend. It was clean, this was very bad because we live on the third floor and our sink drain doesn’t just nip through the wall and into a grid.

It goes through the back of the cupboard, along the wall to the corner and then straight through into a void behind the bathroom, where it joins the bathroom waste pipes; it then fucks off into the sewers through a big pipe that the other flats are joined to.

I borrowed a long rod off Five-Pies and broke into the pipe behind the fridge, rodding the pipe into the waste stack. I felt a blockage, and I felt it move. Job done ! Or so I thought.

The next time we emptied the sink, the bath filled up and Tracy found a piece of roast beef in the bathroom sink.

Fucking arse, we both thought. After a trip to the supermarket we attacked the problem with chemicals, I know about chemicals, how hard can it be ? Apparently it can be very hard, the blockage didn’t move. “Right that’s it !” It was time to rod it again, this time it was going to be vigorous. It seemed to work, after filling both sinks and the bath, pulling all the plugs at the same time, all the water disappeared in reasonably quick time. Excellent, we went to Prague safe in the knowledge that our pipes were at peace.

When we got back it started again, much rodding and cursing didn’t seem to do the trick. As I write this the bath is full of a grey coloured murky water that the washing machine didn’t want. It’s going slower and slower as the days pass. There is only one thing for it. The bathroom wall is going to have to come out.

Fucking cock biscuits !

To be continued.