Wednesday was one of those days that anything that could wrong *did* go wrong. It all started with a sore throat earlier in the week and the gradual loss of my voice, resulting in being off work on Wednesday to see a doctor.
Normally I would just take some kind of throat medication and carry on - but that's not possible anymore. I have to be really careful what medicines I take in case they react with the heart medication.
Now having a throat that is on fire, no voice and an annoying cough doesn't ruin a day. What does ruin a day is seeing water trickling down the wall in the kitchen, and knowing that is it coming from the bathroom above, meaning just one thing - there is a leaking pipe.
Checking all the pipes in the bathroom I found no leak, no wet pipes, no puddles on the floor. Bad news. That meant it was a problem with a pipe beneath the bathroom floor.
So, the emergency plumbers were called. They arrived and took a look, and then had no choice - a hole had to be cut into the kitchen ceiling to see what was going on. This was followed quickly by a second hole to reach the location of the leak.
Leak repaired, and a BIG cheque handed over, the plumber left me to start the clean up job (plasterboard, water and mess everywhere in the kitchen). It was during this clean up that I felt something hit my head, and looked up to see that about 6" to the right of the patched leak another hole had appeared and was started to leak. Water supply off, taps drained, plumber called back...
That was at 1 o'clock. It took until 8 o'clock for the plumber to return. This time he was going to replace the entire pipe, and so had to cut more access into the ceiling to reach the pipe.
Once done, he removed the pipe and checked inside for corrosion. It was at this point that both the plumber and myself noticed that the remaining pipe up above had a cap on the end of it. It turned put that this entire length of pipe (around 10ft) was a disused dogleg that a previous plumber at some point had just capped rather than cut and remove. No wonder it was leaking - the presssure build up within it would have been immense.
So the end result was no pipe was replaced, the old was removed and capped at the wall, another BIG cheque was written, more mess was made, and now we have a lovely scar across the kitchen ceiling that is going to have be repaired by the insurance company. So I am now preparing for the next battle, and get them to actually pay out for the repair.
Oh, and regarding my throat. The doctor advised me to gargle with mouthwash (but not swallow it!!!) as a way to reduce the inflammation and soreness.
I'm hoping that today is going to be a better day than yesterday.
