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A weekend to forget
I am back in the office after an extended weekend. Furtle had taken three days off for her own adventures last week, so I thought that I would take Friday off and have a bit of ‘me’ time myself.
So far, so good.
Friday afternoon saw me at the British Museum with friends – we intended to see the Pompeii Exhibition, but the first available tickets were only available after a three hour wait, so we decided to look at the Elgin Marbles, which took about 90 minutes before cultural overload set in. Then we popped into one of the many gift shops to be appalled at the prices and decamped to the pub.
The trip to the pub was intended only to take a couple of hours, but it all went horribly wrong when somewhere down the line my chum and his girlfriend went into meltdown and yours truly found himself in the middle of it. I left the pub very late, quite depressed and not a little drunk. Though it seems that my drunken attempts at mediation were assisted by the fact that the protagonists were also drunk; I may have bored them into giving themselves another chance.
Saturday, late morning I awoke with the sorest of throats and a raspy voice. Evidence, no doubt of loud drunken snoring and far too much loud talking the night before.
And yet, no hangover.
Furtle returned from her travels at lunchtime and later in the day, we had a splendid Chinese meal before decamping next door, chez![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ingenue_the and harold_chasen for booze and bonfire (though I restricted myself to Pepsi, rather than booze. Truly I did). I was rather more troubled by the gusty smoke than is usual at these bonfires and spent much of the next day feeling short of breath and dehydrated. That wasn’t the problem, though – it was a good evening over all and finished off just before 2am with home made ice cream, which was rather tasty.
The problem came when the cistern on the toilet imploded at about 2.15am. The tank wouldn’t stop filling and it turns out that the mental giant who had installed the cistern in the first place, had omitted to include an overflow, so there was only one place for the extra water to go: down under the floor and into the kitchen. I shall spare you the details, but suffice it to say that once the remains of the ballcock had disintegrated, I was left plugging the leak with my index finger, every tap in the house turned on to reduce the water pressure, while Furtle looked for the uniquely inaccessible stopcock. In the end, thanks to the intervention ofjfs, we got the water turned off at the water meter in the street, so we could mop up and get some sleep.
The kitchen ceiling did not fall in as I feared; we must have caught it early enough that it was simply wet, not sodden. As you might imagine, we didn’t get the best night’s rest (which I rather needed after my drunken escapes of the day before). Anyway, a very professional and helpful Polish plumber sorted us out on the Sunday morning, even to the extent of creating an overflow for us. Any Ilfordites in need of a plumber get in touch with me and I’ll pass his details on.
The remainder of Sunday passed in a bit of a haze. There was some tidying and cleaning up done, but not much else. I seem to recall that we collapsed on the bed at one point for a catch up sleep.
Monday morning, what with one thing and another, we were both so tired that we took an impromptu day off (thank God, it’s a fresh leave year) and did very little other than some gentle gardening.
I slept well last night and am relatively refreshed today, but on the whole, I wouldn’t recommend spending a weekend like that.
So far, so good.
Friday afternoon saw me at the British Museum with friends – we intended to see the Pompeii Exhibition, but the first available tickets were only available after a three hour wait, so we decided to look at the Elgin Marbles, which took about 90 minutes before cultural overload set in. Then we popped into one of the many gift shops to be appalled at the prices and decamped to the pub.
The trip to the pub was intended only to take a couple of hours, but it all went horribly wrong when somewhere down the line my chum and his girlfriend went into meltdown and yours truly found himself in the middle of it. I left the pub very late, quite depressed and not a little drunk. Though it seems that my drunken attempts at mediation were assisted by the fact that the protagonists were also drunk; I may have bored them into giving themselves another chance.
Saturday, late morning I awoke with the sorest of throats and a raspy voice. Evidence, no doubt of loud drunken snoring and far too much loud talking the night before.
And yet, no hangover.
Furtle returned from her travels at lunchtime and later in the day, we had a splendid Chinese meal before decamping next door, chez
ingenue_the and harold_chasen for booze and bonfire (though I restricted myself to Pepsi, rather than booze. Truly I did). I was rather more troubled by the gusty smoke than is usual at these bonfires and spent much of the next day feeling short of breath and dehydrated. That wasn’t the problem, though – it was a good evening over all and finished off just before 2am with home made ice cream, which was rather tasty.The problem came when the cistern on the toilet imploded at about 2.15am. The tank wouldn’t stop filling and it turns out that the mental giant who had installed the cistern in the first place, had omitted to include an overflow, so there was only one place for the extra water to go: down under the floor and into the kitchen. I shall spare you the details, but suffice it to say that once the remains of the ballcock had disintegrated, I was left plugging the leak with my index finger, every tap in the house turned on to reduce the water pressure, while Furtle looked for the uniquely inaccessible stopcock. In the end, thanks to the intervention of
jfs, we got the water turned off at the water meter in the street, so we could mop up and get some sleep.The kitchen ceiling did not fall in as I feared; we must have caught it early enough that it was simply wet, not sodden. As you might imagine, we didn’t get the best night’s rest (which I rather needed after my drunken escapes of the day before). Anyway, a very professional and helpful Polish plumber sorted us out on the Sunday morning, even to the extent of creating an overflow for us. Any Ilfordites in need of a plumber get in touch with me and I’ll pass his details on.
The remainder of Sunday passed in a bit of a haze. There was some tidying and cleaning up done, but not much else. I seem to recall that we collapsed on the bed at one point for a catch up sleep.
Monday morning, what with one thing and another, we were both so tired that we took an impromptu day off (thank God, it’s a fresh leave year) and did very little other than some gentle gardening.
I slept well last night and am relatively refreshed today, but on the whole, I wouldn’t recommend spending a weekend like that.
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