Involuntary Water Feature #2

Well, who would have thought it? Today was not nice and sunny and dry all day but later in the afternoon the balcony started to fill up again. Of course when I was out inspecting the water damage at work...luckily my neighbours had my keys and went in to clear the water away.

When I got back a friend had arrived and she took care of our combined 6 children in the kitchen and bedroom while I went to work on the balcony. Everytime the rain got that little bit heavier the drains sent the water back up the downpipe and it would bubble up with some speed quickly increasing the water level to up to 3 or 4 cm in minutes. My neighbour helped pour water off at a particularly heavy downpour. It took us a good 20 minutes to get all the water off (litres and litres of it...) I then thought that I would have to wake myself up during the night in case it built up during the night again but luckily the ever so good neighbour opened the inspection bit of the downpipe and instead of coming up onto my balcony the surplus water just spilt out onto their garden. No more water features on my balcony, and I'm glad. The fight with the water had made me grumpy and shouty and not good company for the kids. In the end I explained to them calmly and you know what? They actually listened much better than when I shout... Lesson learnt but I can't always behave like that.

Long phonecall with my friend whose house we will be using on holiday and now a last blip and then a well-deserved bed.