We’ve got no water…
Having successfully made it across to Spain after a long delay at the airport in London, we all (Darren, Tom, Jack and I) were so pleased to finally be at the house which we had waited so long to visit.
The house had been stood empty for a few months, so quick cursory look around confirmed that everything was in order. We ignored any suspicious thoughts about the 20 or filled water containers outside in the naya – that is until both boys used the ‘facilities’ and quickly realised that was no water in the system.
Cue Darren to the rescue. Shirt sleeves rolled up and looking like he knew what he was doing, him and Tom went striding down the track to locate the mains water. It will be because they’ve turned the mains off he said reassuringly.
Twenty minutes later, and daylight breaking, both men came back – shaking their heads and muttering to each other about what the still-to-be-fixed problem could be. We had a think and decided that the best thing to do was go to bed! Hopefully, during our slumber, the house would realise that it had occupants again and start to behave itself.
Bottles of water dragged in from the naya and positioned in the bathrooms, we all went to bed – after of course blowing the airbed up… and locating bedding… and unpacking some of the 40 or so boxes which had been bestowed in the garage by our wonderful builders. We woke up a few hours later. Still no water. Let’s go and see Joan, Darren said. Joan’s company sold us the house and since that first viewing back in April, had taken us under her wing and kept us on the straight and narrow.
Then we remembered that we had no car. Oh dear.
We can walk into town, its only a ten minute stroll, said Darren. I agreed – though confess that I was still in a pretty filthy mood and schlepping into town when tired and hungry (as we of course had no food in the house) did not help matters.
Then we remembered that it was Sunday….. Oh dear oh dear.
Spain is very traditional and everything in the rural areas just stops on a Sunday. No shops open. No nothing. And we had no water. No food. And no car to go to a bigger town to get provisions.
Let’s walk in and see what’s open, Darren said – ever the optimist.
So, off we set. Downhill all the way to the village so a pleasant walk and I did thaw considerably. That is until we had spent an hour trying to locate one of the three supermarkets located in the village. La Romana is built like a grid so it sounds quite simple. Not. I think I might have been hallucinating – each street looked the same. We split up… thinking it might be easier to locate that elusive shop. And still didn’t find it. But – we did find the local Chinese shop! Which of course was open. More gesticulations in very pigeon-hole Spanish with the words bread… water…..milk…all met with a negative response. So instead we had beer and icecream!
More marching around La Romana – this time more successfully. We’ll get a dozen bottles Darren said. That should keep us going. And a few other bits. We were quite pleased with ourselves having spent probably nearly two hours trying to find the shop in the first place!
Then we started walking back. And realised that it was all uphill…. and it was hot…. and we were tired… I think if we had got any slower, we may well have stopped completely, but we did stop for snackage and nibbles on the ways which did steer us onwards.
Victorious that we had been successful in our mission to get provisions for the troops, we were glad to be back at the house. I’ll give Joan a ring Darren said. One positive phone call later, we were all set to visit Joan in La Romana the following day who would steer us in the right direction to get the water fixed. Had we been cut off? Was there a burst pipe underground? All would be answered the following day.
That day dawned and Darren and I went to see Joan. Having not seen her for a few months, we were looking forward to seeing her and her staff. How are you, she said. At which point I burst into tears. Bless her heart, she really did spurn into action and summoned a friend of hers to investigate our problem.
A couple of hours later – fault identified, and a new part for mains-water-thing was on its way back via Joan’s friend and it would all be working by the end of the day. Which it was.
Surely things by now could get easier?
We now need to sort a car out, said Darren…
lazydaysinspain 