Good Christmas Jobs

As all good followers of these pages know, I am currently staying with my parents. This location is pretty rural and, as with all such locations there is an ever present threat of property redistribution, with the protagonists being neither of the Robin of Loxley nor Marxist-Leninist bent. In an effort to steal a march on these n'er do wells, Dad has installed several security devices, the most efficient of which is an ever-on hi-tec listening device, much like Jack Duckworth employed to keep a check on the ailing Vera while he had a bevvy in the Rovers. One end of it is somewhere outside, the other in their bedroom, from where the machine-guns can be remotely controlled.

Usually someone wakes up to the sound of divers wild animals scrabbling around on the drive killing something. This morning the alarm was a rhythmic crunch as somebody strode purposefully up the drive at about 2.30am. All the lights were activated and a very short while after Mum stuck her head out from their bedroom window and asked a man walking up the road what his business was. "Southern Water" he said, shining his torch on his hi-viz and waving his paperwork. "OK. Merry Christmas."

A little over 20 years ago main drainage was installed along this road, with part of the route being through the three fields that make up this property. There's a vent, a valve and a sump here and occasionally a visit from the water board is necessary to check their equipment and they can arrive at any time. Even so, when he re-appeared at 10.30 this morning it was a trifle surprising. I went out and asked him whether he'd like a coffee and what the problem was. He told me that the vacuum system was losing pressure and that the fault was somewhere along our section of roughly about 3/4 mile. It would only take him 2 minutes to fix it but he couldn't find it an he'd been walking the route since 12.30 am. Of course, you can imagine what would happen if he'd been unable to locate the fault. Luckily, the only standing water around here today has arrived in a descending fashion rather than the opposite.