There was a nurse’s strike today, so theatres were running at a bare minimum – life and limb cases only, with all elective surgery cancelled.
Rather than having the entire anaesthetic department twiddling their thumbs at the hospital, those of us not rostered to work (this time) got to spend the day on call from home.
I was looking forward to a rare sleep in, although the dogs had daycare today and were being picked up at 6:40. I planned to feed them first so set my alarm for 6:30. My brain being the way it is, though, I woke up every hour from 2 am, and finally gave up and got out of bed at 6. Why am I like this? I made myself one cup of coffee with the full intention of going back to bed once the dogs were picked up, but by then I was feeling wide awake, so made myself another cup. By the time I’d done my Duolingo homework and read all the major newspapers, a couple of hours had passed and it was time for Simon to get up. Yes, they have gentlemen’s hours in GP land, but they work hard once they get there – I wouldn’t swap jobs with him for the world.
Shortly after he’d left, there was a knock on the door. It was a stranger, a man in a high vis vest, asking me if I owned the white Tesla parked on the road as well as the one in our driveway. I said I didn’t and he was quite disappointed. He was with the council and they were trying to fix a big leak in a pipe under the road, and the Tesla was in the way.
I didn’t think any more about it until I went up to have a shower and discovered there wasn’t any water coming out of the taps. Bugger!
Then came another knock on the door, this time a woman. Was I certain that the Tesla wasn’t mine? I told her it definitely wasn’t, and asked when I’d be able to have a shower. She looked surprised and said she was sure they hadn’t turned the water off yet, and I had plenty of time if I got in straight away. I went and checked the water again, still nothing. Then I was gripped with a desperate need to empty my bowels. It seemed very poorly timed, since I didn’t know if I’d be able to wash my hands afterwards, but there was no gain saying it. I gave in, went to the bathroom and let nature take its course, while listening to the sounds of a Tesla car alarm going off intermittently.
While I was on the loo, there came another knock on the door, which was repeated while I finished up and managed to wash my hands with the tiny residue of water in the tap. It was the man in the high vis vest again. “I’m so sorry!” He said “We’ve had to turn the water off, but it’ll only be about an hour or so. Fixing this leak should make a big difference to the flooding in your shed, you just need to give it a day or two to dry out.”
I dug out some old wet wipes to clean myself up, and then headed out into town. The offending Tesla had been towed away, and they had jackhammers going and a big truck, and had even set up some temporary traffic lights to give themselves plenty of room.
By the time I got back home, the work was done and our water was back on, if a little murky to start with. If they’ve really fixed the leak this could be a game changer for our shed, which has had an inch of water on the floor for the past couple of years. There was some improvement when the uphill neighbour fixed his leaking downpipe a couple of months ago, but it’s still been far from dry.
Shortly after I got home, the doggies were returned, in beautiful condition having had their two monthly grooming session. I’m glad they weren’t here with the shenanigans up on the road – they would have been quite wound up by it all.
