Home Truths

Answers Please!

I have just spent the last hour on my hands and knees in the freezing cold covered in what looks and smells like regurgitated puke. I have had to strip off down to my undies and relegate my clothes (and coat) to the washing machine. My hands still stink inspite of numerous washes.

What was I doing? Ha ha. If I had enough followers I could just end the post there and have fun reading all the amusing ideas as they came rushing in. As I only have 12 (my own fault; lazy posting & commenting do not followers get), I will reveal that I have been trying to clear a blocked kitchen drain (oh - was it that obvious?). Not just any old drain mind - the one into which pours the water from my kitchen sink - after having taken a trip through the waste disposal unit.

'Please only use the WDU for small plate scrappings' I informed my husband. 'I don't trust the drain with large quantities of stuff.'

Two days later we have to feed five adults and four kids (see post below...). Mr G. (who always does the peeling bless him) saw fit to flush down the debris from all the potatoes and the parsnips (oh and probably the sodding apples too, seeing as we had crumble) down the WDU. Next day I have to pick my way through puddles of pulped Sunday lunch that has overspilled from the drain to get to my car.

'Oh sorry did you tell me not to? Oh well, I'll deal with it at the weekend.'.

I knew this was a long shot. My husband is not one of those men who spends the weekends doing 'jobs' (when he has been known to achieve anything in this department he spends just as long regaling his efforts to me, practically with his head on my shoulder for grateful patting). Just as my father was more than likely to spend the entire time plodding around with a wheelbarrow in his quilted green jacket; his bobbing head above the window sill the only glimpse we got of him all weekend, so Mr G is to be seen in his comfy armchair, lounge gear on ('lounge gear'? can't think how else to describe it...) remote in hand (or playing Uno with the kids - he is a great Dad).

So, two months later and the drain is STILL blocked. It begins to smell. It smells a bit worse. Feeling the pinch after xmas and Lily's impending school fees, I decide to sort it out myself.

Mistake. HUGE mistake.

I committed, in the words of Sam, an Epic Fail. Donning the blue flowery rubber gloves that go up to my elbows (xmas present from the MIL - don't ask), old jeans, ponytail (thank God) and brandishing boiling water, bamboo cane and my best ladle (well - only ladle, but from our posh set) I must admit I felt optimistic. As I spooned out the putrid gunk, my optimism increased. I could feel the bottom of the drain with the cane and it was getting closer! However, the closer it got, the deeper my arm had to go. Whoops! What was that I could now feel squelching around my fingers? What was that now all over the arm of my coat/bottom of my jeans (remember the puddle?).

I'll spare you the rest of the details. Suffice to say my next attempt with soda crystals and vinegar was no more successful and I'm now searching for a drain man who can. And the lavender hand cream.