Where's the Water?

 We had an interesting night last night. Bill started the laundry at about quarter after midnight. By then the cheaper off-peak electricity rates have kicked in. Not every place has the two meters but this one does. We are up at this time anyway, so might as well just get it done. This is the laundering step. To dry, we hang clothes on an airer. Some places have dryers and some don't. Since we haven't used a dryer in about 40 years (except occasionally when on the road) even if there is one, we don't use it. So it's easy enough to turn the washing machine on and let it do its thing. When it's done, one of us turns off the plug opens the door a bit (they're all front-loaders) and leave it until the next morning when I hang it up.

Anyway, it began and got as far as the first drain and spin. Bill was in the living room/kitchen area where the machine is. I was in the bedroom down the short hallway. After the spin was done, I was thinking that things didn't sound right. I didn't hear it filling up again. I was straining to hear but my tinnitus was strong and it was hard to hear anything else. I figured that if there was an issue Bill would say something. I went back to my book with one ear paying attention. I heard him  get up. I went out to see what was happening. Instead of filling up again, the machine was just humming and lights were blinking. We thought it was broken and we tried to get the door open since it had just done a spin. Even with the plug turned off, the door stayed locked, so we left the plug off and figured we'd have to call the manager this morning. Then Bill tried the cold water tap in the kitchen. Nothing. I checked the Irish Water website to check for outages. None listed. But it did say that if there is no water coming from the cold tap in the kitchen to call. By now it was after 1:15 am. I called and talked to a nice woman who said she would file a report, but they wouldn't see it until 9 this morning and then would have it fixed within 24 hours. She gave me a reference number and took my contact information. We were wondering how we would manage without a bathroom for all that time! In Dungloe there are public ones just around the corner from the apartment in which we lived and they're always clean and well maintained, but nothing here if this whole building was out, which we assumed it was, as did the woman on the phone. She thought it could be a burst water main--a not uncommon situation in Donegal and elsewhere--or a pumping station problem.

We kept checking until a little after 2 and no luck. At around 3 I had to use the bathroom and I wasn't sleeping anyway, so I got up and on my way past the sink, I tried it again. This time water came out! Yay! I tried the kitchen. Water! Yay! I decided to leave the laundry until daytime. I thought about calling Irish Water back to say we had water again but decided I had better wait to make sure it didn't go out again. I went back to bed and slept a little. I got up a few hours later and checked that we still had water. We did. I had to fiddle with the washing machine but got that going. I had to start it over from the beginning. Then I called Irish Water to try to save someone a trip out here. I was told that I should wait until someone called me and I could tell them so they could cancel the job on their end. The person I was talking to couldn't do it. So I am waiting in case they call. It's almost 7 pm and there has been nothing. Maybe they discovered that there was a problem and now there isn't so won't call. I am just glad that the water came back on so quickly and that we are not sitting here all this time without it!  It was one thing to not have water in Alaska where we could haul our own, but quite another here where options are limited!

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