Monday, November 2

This morning the plumbers returned at just before eight o’clock. The truck they came in looks impressive, but not as impressive as the one they brought on Friday. That resembled a petrol tanker.

Both of the trucks carry more equipment than the average fire engine, and I watch impressed. The last time I remember meeting a plumber at work he arrived with a bag of spanners.

We will watch various hoses and pipes put into action and fed down the manhole and into our pipe system. Most of this work will happen as the result of the driver pressing the various keys on the remote control he carries on his belt.

To my amazement they will bring out a colour television, attach a camera on a long tube to it, and feed the camera all the way through our pipes. It will provide its own light, and I will stand in the driveway watching something that looks somewhere between an ultrasound scan and an avant garde remake of Fantastic Voyage.

They will clear the remaining blockage and declare everything hunky dory.