THE skipper of Clyde puffer Vital Spark, the redoubtable Para Handy – central character of Neil Munro’s wonderfully-humorous short stories – was well warned about the dangers of water by fellow-sailor Hurricane Jack.
Whisky-loving Para Handy’s brief flirtation – just three days – with becoming teetotal left his crew horror-struck. Water rots your boots, Jack told him, so imagine what it will do to your insides.
“Watter’s fine for sailin’ on. There’s nothing better. But it’s no drink for sailors.”
In my day job as a boatbuilder, I empathise with him. Water is great stuff for sailing on, but a few hours cleaning a stinking bilge should convince anyone that it should be added to a fine malt only in extreme circumstances.
Little did I realise that I would become intimately involved with water this week. That was far from my thoughts as I packed for a night away from home.
Having excellent neighbours is a real boon, and it is reassuring to know that they have keys to the house and emergency contact numbers should anything go awry while I’m away.
Not that they have ever needed to call, of course.
Until now, that is.
When my mobile phone rang just after 7am, I was surprised to see that it was someone calling from my home number. Having been away for the night, the house should have been empty.
I answered and recognised my neighbour’s voice immediately. His first words, designed to be reassuring, were, instead, deeply worrying. “Where are you?” he asked, calmly.
No one calls at 7am to ask where you are unless they are an air-traffic controller, a prison warder or a suspicious partner. As none of these applied in this case, I felt icy fingers playing up and down my spine. I told him where I was.
“Ah,” he said, enigmatically, then paused. He added: “You’ve had a wee leak, you see.”
Two hours later, after a frustrating drive home during which every 90-year-old Nissan Micra driver in the UK seemed to be on a go-slow mass outing, I met him and his wife at the house. It was unusual to see them dressed in wellies and wet-look T-shirts, eye-catching though Mrs Neighbour looked in hers.
It was even more unusual to notice that where the hall carpet used to be there was now a loch big enough for me to launch a large fishing boat. That was just the beginning, however, as closer inspection revealed that the kitchen, living room and dining room were also afloat, as was a walk-in cupboard that had become a sail-in cupboard overnight.
Laugh? I thought I’d never start.
As I set off the previous evening, I was blissfully unaware that a water pipe in the kitchen was about to do an uncanny imitation of former UK Government minister Hazel Blears. As it parted, it gushed profusely while being hell-bent on doing maximum damage.
If the neighbours had not seen water pouring out the door the following morning, by the time I returned the house would have resembled an aquarium.
I grabbed a pair of wellies, looked round at the devastation, then set to work bailing like a man possessed. Boatbuilders say there is no faster bailing device than a frightened man with a bucket. How true that is.
With the source of the waterspout identified and isolated, the flood water began to subside, but it was not a pretty sight it left behind. Even clean, cold water loses its allure quickly when mixed into a unappetising soup with croutons of bits of tile, carpet, paper, shoes, dust, plaster and six indestructible frozen peas that have been lurking under the freezer since they were spilled there and which have been just waiting for an incident like this to make an unwelcome reappearance.
With items of furniture drinking up the water like parched camels at an oasis, there was no time to lose. The ruined carpets were sliced into manageable sections then dumped outdoors quickly, complete with sodden underlay. If you have ever carted a 10ft sponge for any distance you will know what an unpleasant job that was.
Even as the furniture was being moved to higher ground our excellent insurers were on the case. Soon, a specialist company appeared with fans, blow-driers and super-efficient dehumidifiers that could turn a tropical jungle into a sandy desert overnight. Brilliant.
Today, four days after that pesky pipe disintegrated, we are making slow progress on rescuing the damage. The noise from the fans and driers is akin to a squadron of Lancaster bombers revving up for a mission, but I can live with that.
Tomorrow, the insurers will arrive to assess the damage formally. Tonight, I am totally knackered.
I fancy a dram before bedtime. Just one request, though.
No water, please.