Monday 26 June 2023
There is good reason to have hope that the water problem is alleviated. In fact, I’m so optimistic that I have prepared a load of washing for the machine and last night’s shower stretched to three whole glorious minutes of hot showering. I give myself a degree of credit for isolating a few factors that convinced me there was still water in the spring (including the fact of water being at the entry point of the pipe down to our tank, in the photo). Thanks to Mitch working here yesterday and thanks to his being super-efficient, there was plenty of time for me to take him to an area of water pipe that is above ground and which by winter will need re-lagging. We had the foam tube and it seemed a much better thing to do before it got wet again and the ground was harder to walk across. Having A failed to find the exposed pipe where I thought it was and B both of us realising we had all necessary equipment except the lagging, Mitch went back down the hill while I searched for the pipe. I am so, so glad I wasn’t the one who had to go back down and back up the hill again, I usually take a couple of scenery-admiring pauses when I climb up there on my own, it’s hard-going and I was definitely not taking it in my stride the way a twenty-something can. It would also have taken significantly longer if I had been the one to return down and up the hill for it. Anyway, I found the pipe further up the hillside and left Mitch there while I went to check on the spring again. The spring was slightly more full than a week earlier when I’d last been up there and still no sign it was moving down the pipe.
I sealed the spring’s cover and headed back down to where Mitch was working on the pipe and join. I heard a sound through the pipe, “Ooo, is that water?”, “No, it’s air.” He opened up the join, no water. Meanwhile, the pipe into the tank had been continuously dripping (I counted 118 drops in a minute, which Chris worked out was about one litre per 25 minutes), which I had taken to be a positive sign that at least water was getting through. Anyway, Mitch then did something that I’m sorry to say I would have been hard-pressed to do, even in the name of restoring a much-needed water supply; he sucked the pipe leading down the hill from the spring. On releasing the pipe, some water poured out. Not a massive amount but significantly more than mere drops. He did that a few more times and more water came out. He figured this was good news, that it meant an airlock was likely the problem. He went up to the spring and I stayed and watched the water coming out the pipe, which I found mildly upsetting as that was water I would rather could have gone straight into our tank.
Anyway, Mitch returned, drawing the same conclusions as I had about it being weird that there was water around the spring but not moving down the outlet pipe at the top of the spring. Air lock. After mentioning quite a few slugs within the spring entrance, which I had also noticed with repulsion, he started sucking the pipe again. I was dreading a slug coming down the pipe, and I wasn’t even the one who would potentially get a mouthful of – shudder – slug. With just one explosion of water, there were no incidents and a healthy-looking amount of water started pouring through the pipe. He reattached the pipes, covered them in lagging, taped them up and we went back down the hill. I was full of anticipation getting to the water tank. Would you believe it, after all these weeks of drips and emptying tanks, there was a healthy trickle. On Sunday morning, the water was at 42cm. Within a few hours of pipe-sucking to unblock airlocks, it went up to 45cm. This morning, I could hear the joyous sound of running water as I got near the tank and the flow was still the same and the water was at 52cm. It has also rained quite a lot and, walking up the garden this morning, I could hear running water. Our mini waterfall is flowing, you can hear the river at the end of the drive much clearer and there is even water alongside the paths and other waterways.
A few hours prior to this, my friend Angela and I had had a video chat about her visit here on Friday and whether she would be ok to stay while we had major water rations. She said she was fine with that and would bring caps to wear to not need to wash her hair every day. I’m now wildly optimistic we’ll have a full tank of water by the time she arrives.
Unlike the last heatwave, it would seem that London (where Chris is) and the southeast, and I think as far north as Yorkshire, have very hot weather while we here have it much cooler. Today, this area has a range of 9°C to 16°C while London has 14°C to 24°C. I am very, very happy to be in Scottish Borders today, especially now we have much better prospects for our water supply.