The Rebellion of the Pipes

I am starting to get a little stir-crazy sitting around this house. I considered walking the Thames Path yesterday and I wound up not going because rain was expected -- but as it turned out the rain was light and I should have just done it. So it goes.

Instead I took Olga for a walk through the neighborhood. We walked a long loop through the Maygrove Peace Park and back along Mill Lane and West End Green (above). You can see our two neighborhood Christmas trees in that photo -- one in the park and one just beyond it on the high street. Also, una paloma blanca!

Here's Olga trudging through that weird cage that surrounds the path known as Wayne Kirkum Way along the railroad tracks. I don't know whether the cage is meant to protect pedestrians from passing trains or vice versa. Probably both. It's like descending into Dante's Inferno in a giant shopping cart.

We are experiencing more domestic drama. Yesterday, very suddenly, our kitchen sink stopped draining. It worked fine when I made coffee in the morning, but around 11 a.m. I found it completely plugged. As an experiment I ran a load of laundry to see if the washing machine is also affected and yes, it is, as I learned when water poured onto the kitchen floor through the backed-up drainpipe. That means the dishwasher won't drain either.

So after cleaning all that up, I called British Gas, because our landlords have BG home protection coverage which includes the drains. They were unable to book a repair and kept saying they'd call me back. They said this multiple times and never did. Meanwhile we tried a plunger and liquid drain-opener with no luck. Finally, in the evening, I called our management company's emergency repair number and a plumber came out at 10 p.m. and basically said all he could do is submit a quote to our property managers because it wasn't technically an emergency. Being unable to use the kitchen sink feels like an emergency to me, but apparently their bar is set pretty high (i.e. we were not dying).

I'm sure we're going to have to live with this problem through New Year's Day, at least. I blame the Russians and their renovations. They probably poured plaster dust or God knows what into the drain yesterday morning and that clogged it up. Why else would it happen so suddenly? I asked Mrs. Russia yesterday evening but of course she played the wide-eyed innocent.

SQUIRREL!

On a brighter note, this post concludes my eighth consecutive year of blogging every single day -- and for three years before that, from 2012-2014, almost every day. I'm pretty happy with that record, though I'm sure some of you think, "Geez, what's he whining about NOW?!"

I will admit I have been whiny of late. Sorry about that. It's been a challenging month, first with being sick and then with all these problems in the flat. I am definitely ready for a fresh start.

Happy New Year!