Deep Within The Heart Of Darkness

The picture above shows a stepladder descending in to a deep water tank.

Briefly then?
The reason that I am so cold and wet?
Well, I have spent a not insignificant part of my day bailing mud and water over my head from the bottom of my cistern.
After the coldest night in living memory my water decided to cough and give up the ghost. I am pretty sure that it isn’t the cold that has done it though as the event was preceded by a harbinger….
So on a bitterly cold day I have been underground and underwater.
I have cleaned out everything that I can get to easily and there is now a small trickle restored but I have a feeling that a large hole is going to have to be dug behind the house in order to get normal service back online.
Sometimes the joys of a remote mountain farmhouse seem a little more tenuous than others. There is a certain appeal in being able to complain to a water company or perhaps claim on household insurance.
Up here we have to make our own entertainment.
And yet you know what. Really. I love it.
It is things like this and the tales that can be exaggerated from it that make life worth a damn.
So as I replace the large cast iron lid on the underground reservoir that has served me so well and the skin on my hands freezes to it and peels slightly…..
As I stand here head to foot in freezing sludge with slim prospect of a shower.
As I watch Jupiter ride over the snow.
I know. I can boil up some of this snow for a shower.
Whoop!



And this is me. Deep underground.