More fun.

It soon became funner when our resident engineer decided that turning off the mains water was an unnecessary precaution before detaching the water softener head (he had thought about it beforehand and did turn it off afterwards - quite quickly!).  Fortunately behind every in-house engineer (in this house) there is a contingency planner who had set aside quantities of water for drinking etc.  And things just got worse:  the contingency planner started grinding on about learning experiences and take-aways.