A cock and bull story

Contrived heading #356. Actually it's the now defunct ballcock from our header tank in the loft, which had been overflowing for days requiring me to bale out the water from the bin we had placed below the overflow pipe several times a day, otherwise we were fearful of damp getting through the walls. Unbeknown to us, until the plumber cheerfully told us, there is an isolator valve by the header tank that we could have turned to shut the water off!  Anyway, Chris the plumber came on Tuesday and replaced the whole ballcock mechanism. Apart from shot washers the ball itself was rusted and perforated and had itself been letting in water so that it wasn't rising to stop the tank from topping up and then streaming into the overflow.