Plumbing Challenge
It’s Monday, and we’ve started with a mildly blustery day. The Blue Star came in at around five, and I thought of those who were due to catch it because they must go to Rhodes for the first of three appointments to get their biometric residency permits. If only they could be done here on Symi! It’s not so much the cost, as the Bule Star is that that costly, but arriving in Rhodes at six in the morning for an appointment that shouldn’t last any longer than 20 minutes is a trial. That done, you’ve got to wait until the return boat in the evening, with more or less everything shut and in a deep red zone… When I am due to go in April, there is, currently, a morning Blue Star but no return boat until Wednesday. I’ve not checked the Stavros sailings yet, but it might mean a two-night stay to add to the cost and possible danger. I’m hoping I’ve had at least one vaccination by then, but who knows?
We also need to have our annual health checks done. We usually do these in February or March to avoid the pre-season workers’ rush, but that’s not going to happen this year, not until later, possibly. As for today, my plans for the week are to turn my hand to some light plumbing. The bathroom sink needs its pipe cleaned out, and there’s a permanent drip from a washing machine feed tap that we don’t use. (The washing machine is in the other part of the house, and I plumbed that in myself. Well, I stuck a pipe onto a tap and plugged it in.) The sink waste pipe is one of those flexible things, and it’s never been properly fixed into the wall, so that should be easy. The plan is to take it out of the wall, fiddle about with it and flush the gunk out into a bucket. That done, it shouldn’t be too hard to refix into the wall, maybe with a little filler if I am feeling adventurous, and then all should be well. I’m fed up with using the plunger on it at five in the morning, only to free it but have it slow-drain again a few days later. Knowing my luck, it will all go horribly wrong, and I’ll have to call someone. I am to DIY what the yUK government is to giving pay rises to nurses.
I am building up the confidence to attack the washing machine tap as that, to me, has no discernible way of detaching from the wall. I mean, I can’t see a nut, and as I only own three adjustable spanners and a blunt screwdriver, who knows what will happen? I’ve tried fixing the drip with silicone – messy, but it has stemmed the flow – but it looks like a complete transplant will be needed. As the tap is ‘live’, it also involves turning off the pump, emptying the pipe, trying to get the tap from the wall without damaging the pipe, finding a replacement tap, attaching it with my spanner, and hoping for the best. I’ll see how the sink adventure goes first. If you were wondering why I have three adjustable spanners, the answer is, I have no idea. They multiply in our house like coat hangers. So, wish me luck, and I shall report back on the progress of this, the most exciting thing to happen in our bathroom in the past several months.
