Water

[poliphilo]

You can make a perfectly acceptable cup of tea using carbonated water out of a bottle. I know this because we got up this morning to find our water had been turned off at the mains and we were- effectively- living in the 18th century.  Ailz was saying I'd have to fetch water in from the water butts to flush the loos.

Of all the conveniences the modern world affords- and we normally take for granted- mains water has to be the greatest.

P.S. It's back on now.

P.P.S. Matthew says the Maidstone Rd on the far side of the village was flooded when he drove past this morning and there were diggers etc busily at work. 

Comments

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

My first ex- and his second wife lived off the grid for awhile. They had a well directly below their kitchen, with a pump set in the counter next to the kitchen sink.

They kept a bucket next to the loo. The routine was: flush, refill the tank from the bucket, refill the bucket from the pump in the kitchen.

(It was a farm in upstate New York. When they bought it, they didn't turn the utilities back on... We spent an interesting long weekend there as visitors and deliverers of stuff we'd stored for them.)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It would be interesting to live like that.

Having the well in the kitchen would be good- no traipsing outside to fetch water.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

It's also possible, I guess, that the well was outside and they had an interesting system of pipes and gravity flow. But the hand pump was certainly in the kitchen.