Anne Dickens | The Day After Yesterday

If the shock of discovering the vandalised village sign yesterday wasn't enough to put me off my journey home, just imagine how I felt when not more than 250 yards after that, I encountered a huge bloody great flood in the road. Sacre bleu! How much can a human be expected to endure?

It became pretty clear that a mains pipe had burst and was gushing forth, and it was with trepidation that I crawled through the water which easily lapped the sills of my car. Ah! I know what you are thinking, but no, I didn't get stuck. I managed to clear the bloody flood and make it home, happy in the knowledge that the last of my day's trials was over. Or so I thought.



What a day! I decided to have a nice cup of tea, a long bath and then catch up on Gillian McKeith making a tit of herself on 'I'm a Celebrity, Get me Out of Here'.

I picked up the kettle to fill it up and turned on the tap. One drop of water fell languidly into the sink. Bloody nora. It dawned on me that I had just driven through all my water on the road ten minutes ago.

'You are kidding me,' I hissed to myself despairingly, picking up the phone to ring the Thames Water Company. A lady operative answered.

"Hello," I said to her, "I live in Forest Hill and I haven't got any water supply to my house."

"Oh yes," she replied, "the mains pipe is leaking, so we are sending an emergency team out to fix it."

"How long will that take?" I asked.

"Six hours," the lady stated cheerily. Hey lady, don't do cheery when you are giving people bad news.

"Six bloody hours?" I said, "So you are telling me that I have to live like an Arab for six hours?"

"Not exactly like an Arab," she replied, "you will have to do without water, but you won't have to ride a camel or wear a teatowel on your head."

Is it me, or has customer service gone downhill in the last decade?

I was huffing and puffing and lamenting about poor customer service, when someone knocked on the front door. I opened it and saw Izzy standing there (it was her turn to spend the night at her Dad's house, so I wasn't expecting her).

"Hello Izzy sweetheart, what are you doing here?" I asked, giving her a hug.

"I've come to give you a present that I bought with my pocket money," she stated proudly.

"Come inside and show me," I said, ushering her in the door. 

She rooted around in her coat pocket and after a couple of minutes, produced a raspberry sweet in the shape of a heart with bits of fluff stuck to it.

"Here you go," she grinned, watching as I held it aloft to admire it.

"That's one of the most thoughtful presents I have ever had," I said, watching her brim with pride.



What can I say? It certainly took the edge off living like an Arab. Have you ever had any cute kid presents?