Tapping the last reserves of energy

Slow running taps and slow running day. For some inexplicable reason, the two sets of identical mixer taps in the bathroom, sixty centimetres apart, behave differently. One set of taps provides a roaring, foaming abundance of water, both from the hot and cold pipes. The other set produces a parsimonious, prostate sufferer's dribble.

Today's task was to take the mixer taps apart to see if there was a blockage - either bits of damaged, detached washer, or the dreaded 'calcaire', or hard water deposit. I had done a certain amount of plumbing in Scotland, so I knew what I was in for. Or rather I thought I did. What I hadn't reckoned on was the fundamental difference of national 'philosophy' in the tap design department.

I had done some homework, of course, by consulting the endless strings of plumbing posts on the French internet. I had drawn, for use down in the flat, an exploded diagram of the commonest model of French tap-headgear.

So, after further research and consultation with René, our neighbour, I found the stopcock in the street (useful things, as the dame found yesterday in the rue Sade), turned it to off, mounted to the second storey and started work. The taps were fossilised in a calcareous exoskeleton. Vinegar and a fair bit of prodding with a screwdriver removed enough incrustations to be able to unscrew the headgear. Nothing like the diagram. These worked more like the pistons in a Bflat cornet. Still, it was fairly clear how to take them apart, clean them with vinegar, put them together again, reinsert them, run down to the stopcock in the street, rush up in case there was a flood. No flood, but an undifferentiated dribble - whether the taps were open or shut. Ah, a washer problem.

I saw no reason to be worried, because I had been to the ironmongers the day before to check that they had a wide variety of washers. So I went down again, shut off the stopcock, ran upstairs again, undid the headgear, dried it, put it in my pocket and headed off for the ironmongers, next to the tramps sunning themselves in the bus station.

Naturally, they didn't have that kind of washer. So back to the flat to figure out a way of reusing the semi-perished washers. Tried them upside down (that works sometimes). New trip to stopcock, new undifferentiated dribble. Tried a different way of sticking them onto the headgear and lo and behold, taps now worked. Not enthusiastically, but less meanly than before. I think the main problem is the diameter of the pipe, which is different for both sinks.

Plumbing may give lead poisoning, etc. but it sure keeps you cardio-vascularly fit.