New knickers

Contrary to 'popular' belief, there was no water at 08:00 this morning.

I waited until 09:30 and then phoned NI Water. Now, you have got to feel sorry for the poor sods who are answering the phones, because they are not responsible for fixing the pipes, nor are they responsible for them bursting, but someone has seen fit to put them in the front line, answering angry phone calls from smelly customers, but have not seen fit to furnish them with any information except the (now widely acknowledged) totally inaccurate information on their website.

Anyway, being nice with the poor girl who drew my number managed to get me the information that although 'they' had been working all night repairing the pipes in our area, very early this morning there had been further bursts. And a further truth, that in fact nobody had any idea when we would have any water, even on rotation, and if I had somewhere to de-camp to, I should really de-camp.

A whiff of my son's armpits and my daughters revelation that she had run out of knickers were the deciding factors, and de-camp we did with our wash gear and a load of dirty laundry.

I'm sure my brother was delighted to see us arrive. I'm sure my niece was even more delighted as she had to vacate her bed and her room to allow us to use her shower. Thankyou!

And so we were able to shower, wash our collective hairs, use and even flush toilets, clean teeth, drink tea and wash clothes. Result! While there we also had opportunity to fill all out neighbours water holding receptacles, which we sold back to them for a small fee on our return.

In conclusion, I'd advise the general public to abandon the NI Water website and instead resort to Twitter, Facebook and even this site for up-to-date, accurate information on water supplies. I'd also advocate the purchase of emergency knickers.