Mrs. Plumber.

I think I earned my first plumber's badge this morning when under Peter's supervision I fixed the leaking joint in the downstairs toilet. It was in a very awkward position and I still fail to see how I'm supposed to see through a pipe to check if the back of the nut is level with the front so that I don't cross thread it. I almost gave up at one point when the small drip suddenly increased in flow. Poor Peter had to get down on his arthritic knees to find out that a big plastic nut holding the pipe to the toilet cistern also needed tightening. Naturally when I cut the alkathene pipe to insert a fitting I didn't cut it perfectly straight so had to spend time filing the 2 ends of the plastic piping level. But eventually it was all done, the nut tightened up without cross threading and the drip is no more. 

All that stressful plumbing sent me out into the garden, after a cup of tea and a rest, to do some weeding up in the scree garden. That was after splitting a load of logs so we can have a fire tonight. It's not that cold but not too warm either.

When the rain sent me back inside I tidied up the downstairs toilet and used some tile adhesive to fill a crack in the plaster. (That was because I've got a big tub of tile adhesive.) However I realised that the crack was just a sign of some blown plaster so instead of trying to bodge it I took off the plaster to expose a patch 6x3" of very crumbly wall, part of the original farmhouse which could be several hundred years old. That's now filled and parts of the walls and floor have had a good soaking with fungicide.