Troubled Waters

We’re in town a little longer as we iron out a few more creases with the bus and trailer. Love we can pop back for a week or two and then disappear again for a month or so without having to pack a single suitcase.

Ah, the gypsy life.

We spent a week parked in front of my parent’s place, and this week it’s Tracey’s parents who have joy the of our company. And while ‘joy’ is my word and not one I’ve necessarily heard them use to describe us being here, I do know that I’m keeping my mother-in-law, Carmel, amused.

In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever heard her laugh as much as I did this week.

“I could hear you from the shed,” said her husband, Ken, when he joined us at the bus. Just to be clear, in relation to where we were standing, the shed in question is in the back of the back yard, on the other side of their two story house. And just to show he knew exactly why she’d be laughing, he added dryly, “What’s he done now?”

It’s almost like I’m getting a bit of a reputation around here. In my defence, though, as a banker the only thing I’ve had to fix the previous thirty years were home loan interest rates.

What I’d done, in this instance, was to unblock a pipe.

And I mean actually unblocked it.

Successfully.

So yay me.

Our grey water tank is only about 50 litres which, no matter how fast you have showers, fills up pretty quickly with a family of seven.

It’s also the drainage from the sinks, where we do dishes, wash our hands, shave and brush our teeth.

It is quite a heady mix.

As I found out this week because I’ve been emptying it periodically into a bucket.

“Bugger,” I said. “It must be blocked.”

Probably with a bit of pasta or something. I mean, we have those special plugs which stop stuff from being sucked down the drain, but getting the kids to remember to use them has been an issue.

Usually, like most vans and motorhomes, we simply hook up a hose which takes the mess away from the bus just as quick as we make it, but Tracey’s parents weren’t keen to have us water their yard with it.

“You sure you haven’t just forgotten to turn the tap?” Carmel asked me as she stood looking down on me from the top of the stairs.

“How stupid do you think I am?” I asked her back.

“Pretty stupid,” she assured me.

An opinion I gave her no reason to deviate from a few moments later when I decided to unblock the grey water with a length of hose – where ‘length’ is overstating things.

I attached the six inches I found in one of the bus bins to the grey water output nozzle, took a big breath, and blew.

There was definitely some give in the bowels of the bus – bowels being, it turned out when moments later I took in a deep breath with a view to giving it a second blow, the operative word.

Which is when my mother-in-law was at risk of springing a leak herself.

“Grrk….hurrrk….hakk….nkkk,” were the only responses I could make to Carmel’s quite frankly unkind hysterics at the top of the front stairs as I arched my back on all fours hurling my guts, and the bucket started to fill.

Note to self: if the black water ever – EVER! – clogs up, we sell the bus.

Raising a family on little more than laughs