Toothache, no water, not reading in the bath, and Bagels…

Water, water, every where, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink.

I woke up this morning with a slight toothache. Well, when I say toothache, more an ache in the place where one of my teeth used to be. It was apt really, because today is National Toothache Day - a day celebrating toothache, who dreams these things up I wonder; a dentist maybe?

It’s not just Toothache day though, it’s also National Bagels and Lox Day, National Read in the Bathtub Day, and World Marriage Day; quite a mixture really. But being one to celebrate anything that’s going I decided to run a bath and have a read for half an hour.

Turning on the taps I soon realised that today must also be National No Water Day, because the trickle that came out of the Edwardian mixer tap soon dwindled to nothing with a gurgle and a final splutter. No water! What was going on?

Immediately I imagined that the downstairs of our house was awash with water as the inlet pipe must have burst overnight. I ventured downstairs and then downstairs again to the cellar. No water anywhere. I breathed a sigh of relief and consulted Twitter.

It seems that Twitter does have its practical uses after all and I soon found out that there was no water in our postcode or indeed in the postcode just to the right of us. How would I cope? There were teeth to clean, washing-up to be washed, coffee to make, and a quick wash, at the very least, would have been nice.

As I brushed my aching teeth in Evian I wondered how long we would be without water. Filling the kettle with Sainsbury’s sparkling water I made myself a coffee and, sipping it, I consulted Twitter once more. Apparently the pumping station had a problem and the pressure was low. United Utilities were doing their best to rectify the situation but the water would be off for some time.

‘Some time’… just what did that mean? I needed the loo.

Luckily I found that the toilet downstairs in the cellar had one last flush left in it and, business done, I figured that that there may also be a little water remaining in the cellar taps.

I managed to fill four good sized saucepans and, after boiling them on the stove, completed the washing up. I even managed a shave and a wash, with a little water to spare for more coffee.

Thinking how annoying the no water situation was I remembered back to the times I visited my grandparents in Lincolnshire. They had no running water, just a pump and a huge tank of rainwater by the back door. Their toilet was way down the garden in a brick shed where there nestled a two-seater wooden board with a deep hole below. How did they manage?

‘Basically’ was my only answer.

The water returned around four o’clock to much relief and the preparing of dinner. Having no water had been an annoying, dispiriting thing even if it had been for only a few hours. It made me realise just how awful it must be for those people in the floods with no water and their homes awash with the stuff. Those few hours had been more than enough for me.