And Then, Plumbing...

This post is for Ripper as a follow-up to his latest comment. But first, my thanks to Rat Catcher for a comment at Going Postal this morning that kickstarted my day with a wide smile:

“Chinese neighbour had Waffles for breakfast the bastard.
I loved that cat.”

A bit of basic plumbing but first the closing line from Ripper’s comment;
I think your nest of vipers is either very hardy indeed or secretly using all the toilet roll! :-)
Ripper, I’m of the belief she’s pretty much bullet proof.

And now to a few words loosely tied to plumbing. This goes back twenty years plus when my little nest of vipers took me ‘in country’ in a land far, far, far away, to visit some of her friends. The village comprised about thirty dwellings and we stayed with her elderly friends in their abode.

The washing and toilet facilities were in a shack attached to the main dwelling but at the same time separate. And I did use this facility although the first go was rather daunting. The toilet was just a hole in the ground with a raised area above with boards to squat on and a bucket of water for ‘cleaning up’. You use the bucket and fill it for the next user.

I have no idea how the bottom of the hole got cleaned up but the area was totally odour-free so I assumed it was in a continual state of being ‘flushed’ by the trench below that was tied into the swiftly running river that ran behind the village. Or by the big rains. Then wot? Wash your hands and just over there was a sink. Now I say sink but it’d be best described as one of they stone horse troughs you used to see in every town over here way back.

Okay, over to the ‘horse trough’  and rinsed my hands. I then cupped my hands, dunked ‘em and put my head down for a splash and this was when I saw the fish swimming about in the trough... Damn!! Was I washing in the fish-on-the-fin pantry? Back in the main dwelling I enquired as to the fish tank and was slowly and politely answered as if I was a tad ‘gone out’. If the fish were alive and well, the water was sure good and safe enough to wash yourself with. I left it at that as I figured it’d be impolite to bring up the subject of the ‘bodily’ functions of fish; a subject I’m spookily unfamiliar with anyway.

Drinking water? I gave that a pass and stuck to beer morning, noon and night purchased from the guy with a van who drove through the village, with stuff from the big town, every morning and evening. From our brief stay there, it seemed the entire population of the village did likewise. It was a very happy village... and I’m guessing their immune systems were probably off the chart. However, it was damn good to get back to the ‘polluted’ city.

Quote;  Bernard Sumner.

“In Salford, we had fish in our tap water. I remember, one hot summer day, running to the toilet at playtime and dunking our heads in a sink full of water. I remember putting my head in and seeing all these little fish in it.”