I wrote a few posts back that it seemed everything was breaking down at our place.

To be fair, it’s an age thing. As most equipment is over 20 or 30 years old, they’re all giving up the ghost 👻 and come at once.

Not exactly the right time either when we are looking at budgets and expenses!

This morning, I noticed a puddle on the tiles of the outdoor tap. It hasn’t been raining so I wondered where the water was coming from? Is it from the gutter? The outdoor tap? Where?

I looked under the outdoor sink and noticed the PVC piping that came out from our bathroom wall had cap that was missing. I looked around for it but couldn’t see it anywhere. I went inside and turned on the bathroom tap to let the water run, went outside and saw that the water was flowing outside onto the tiles.

A ha! That was the culprit.

So we went to Bunnings to buy a little cap to screw on and I thought I had found it.

Unfortunately it wasn’t the right size and they didn’t have any smaller.

I came home and gaffa taped the hole as I usually do this. Gaffa tape fixes everything. There’s a lot of things at our place being held together by gaffa tape. I turned on the tap then noticed that the sink was filling!

💩 that means a blockage somewhere 😡

Out comes YouTube, and I searched on how to unblock the S-bend but in the end, Andrew did that for me anyway and the S-bend was clean – albeit one of my makeup brushes was found. I had wondered where that got to!

Argh. By now I’m panicking the blockage is elsewhere in the piping system.

I’m seeing dollars 💸 💸💸💸

Out comes the plunger and I’m plunging the sink like a maniac to get the water to be forced down and unblock the black muck in it. It seemed to do the trick.

For now.

I’ll go to the Plumbing place (Reece) tomorrow and ask their plumbers if they have that specific cap. If there’s still a blockage, looks like I might need to call the plumbers.

I hope I don’t need to because tradespeople are so insanely expensive that it’s no wonder people use YouTube as DIY.

Later in the kitchen, while washing the dishes, the same thing happened. Out comes the plunger and in these times I put bicarbonate of soda and vinegar in the sink to clear it.

I might need to buy a more industrial strength drain cleaner to give it another go.

Ever since the dishwasher broke down, washing the dishes by hand means that the drains clog up more often.

It’s not a fun job to clear up the black gunk and mess that comes out but I guess it’s a necessary job.

After not finding the part, I went to a nearby thrift shop to see what books they had on their shelves. It was very busy inside as these places are normally. I read somewhere that with the cost of living, thrift stores are doing a booming trade now. I’ve always shopped at them because I love to find books and sometimes, jumpers made of good wool that I can unravel, wash and reuse their yarn. (Although I much prefer to potter around more Vintage bric-a-brac places that sell older stuff).

I came away with these finds for $2 each and realising now that I have a new collection of David Malouf books. I think I’ll enjoy all these. If not, they’ll end up back at the thrift store again.