Saturday, 12th April
For once, it wasn’t bright and clear and frosty when we woke up. It was grey, overcast, and it had rained in the night.
Breakfast was toasted sweet bread with jam. I didn’t know it was sweet bread when I bought it – to me, it looked like olive bread, but the lack of Dutch made purchasing something like this a bit of a lottery. As it turned out, it was a good decision, particularly for Annie who is a sucker for anything sugary.
We had decided that showering in the van was a better idea than 50 cents’ worth of dubious water from the arctic shower / toilet block, so I put on the boiler to heat our water. We sat and read and had more toasted sweet bread to finish off the loaf.
Suddenly, there was a small bang, a hissing sound, and the water pump turned on. The sound was coming from under the bed, so I turned off the pump, lifted the bed, and steam / smoke rose from underneath. This could be a problem but I played it cool as Annie had already concluded that the sky had fallen in and all would be reduced to molten rubble in seconds.
After the steam had cleared, I could see that the hot water take-off pipe had come off the boiler, and allowed a small amount of hot water to be pumped onto the floor. The only question was: had the pressure built up too much and forced it off (although there is a pipe disappearing into the floor which I presume is an overflow of sorts), or had it just simply been not put on properly in the first place or worked its way loose? I had run off a bit of hot water to wash the dishes, which may have softened the pipe. The clip holding it on was some fancy twisted thing, so when we get home, I’ll replace that with a good old-fashioned Jubilee Clip.
I replaced the pipe, and we both had our showers without further incident although Annie seemed wary for a while.
The rest of the day was very quiet. Annie spent the day reading, although I braved the strong winds to cycle up the road, and bought a ‘few bits and pieces’ from the supermarket, and took a few photos on the way back.
