The best laid plans?

We had plans today. But we didn’t quite fulfil them as we thought we might.

John planned to decorate the Christmas cake, but after a walk up to the shops, he thought better of it and slotted the job in for tomorrow instead.

I planned to visit Mum this morning, but thought that, as I’d be visiting her on Christmas Eve morning, I’d gather all the bits together and take them to that visit instead. That decision gave me a bit of breathing space to deliver the remaining Christmas cards round the village. Yay!

We had also planned to visit Pete and Dawn for a cuppa this afternoon, but Dawn and I decided that there were too many Christmas preparations to make right now, and we’d be better off waiting until the dust has settled after Christmas.

John and I had just settled back into the sofa after lunch, to enjoy watching an old film, when the doorbell rang. It was Richard from over the road. I hardly looked at him as he stood there though. My gaze was drawn to the river of water pouring down our drive and lapping at the front door. “The water main has broken,” Richard said, gesturing towards the road just outside our house. Crikey.

The water had lifted the pavement and the grass verge up by a couple of inches, spilled rocks and lumps of clay onto the path and drive, before gushing down the road, over the blocked drains, down into any low area it could find – including our drive, the path down the side of the house and into the back garden. It had stopped short of the garage and, fortunately, hadn’t ingressed.

I went to get John, so that we could come up with a plan of action. We struggled to find our wellies, then went out to see if we could unblock the drains on our drive to ease the water through. All the neighbours were out and making suggestions as to how to alleviate the mess.

Callum, Richard’s son, had a garden fork and was lifting the drain covers to dig out the blockages in the drains along the roadside. Jane, our neighbour, was on the phone trying to get hold of Severn Trent, the Fire Service, the Council or anyone who might be able to help. Will, from over the road, suggested sandbags in front of the drives to prevent the water pouring down. Sally and I carried sandbags to the neighbour’s drive, before some more men came along and joined in.

To be honest, at that point, I could see that the men were loving the excitement of it all. One came bearing more bags to be filled with rubble to help dam the drives; another came running along with an electric pump; yet more stood about discussing how to combat the stream of water which had now cascaded along Station Road, reaching Kemps Green Road before rounding the corner and into the ‘new estate’.

Our ministrations on our own drains and the dam that we made at the top of the drive helped us and the water eased and flowed down the drains. Our neighbours weren’t so lucky, with water pouring into their garages.

Peter and Jack called in, anxious to know if there was anything they could do. They had driven past and seen the chaos. How thoughtful and wonderful to have such friends. As it was, there was nothing more to do, so they went home to Dawn to finish off their Christmas preparations.

John spent an hour holding on the phone to try and get through to Severn Trent, who eventually answered and said yes, it was clearly an emergency and high priority, and someone would be here to deal with it by 10 o’clock tomorrow morning. Hahahaha……. John was so cross that he threatened to get on to ‘ATV Today’ to publicise the issue……

As luck would have it, a member of the council happened to drive by and saw the mess we were in. No, it couldn’t be left until tomorrow morning. He would arrange for one of the pumping lorries to come and pump out water, and he’d get on to Severn Trent to come and effect a repair.

We are not sure what the impetus was for the workmen to come, either the Solihull Council Official or the volume of calls from us all in the neighbourhood but, about six o’clock, Jane called round to say they were here and would call on us.

John was just doing his second job of the day and attaching the VW car battery to a battery charger (it wouldn’t start the other day and it’s been languishing ever since….) when the Severn Trent chappie came and explained we’d be without water ‘for a few hours’ while they sorted it out. They’ve been beavering away ever since.

Meanwhile, we held our regular Quiz Night this evening (at least one of our plans came to fruition), at which we were Quiz Masters – and it was all about Christmas. It was a bit of fun and quite high-scoring because there were lots of bonus points this week.

The last round was especially good fun, because it was a singing round. Points were scored if the team could sing the next line of a carol. Well, of course, they didn’t stop at one line, did they? Raucous singing all round. John was particularly vocal, having drunk the best part of a bottle of wine. Marvellous.

Eeh, we’ve had some fun and games today, haven’t we?

Take care everyone. God bless.