Poo!

Now for something completely different…

So, last night and today has been interesting. Chris had a bath last night, all was well, he was tired and relaxing, then I heard a shout. Cathy bring a bucket! (He said mop as well but I didn’t hear that). I went in and there was water all over the floor. It turns out it wasn’t just water, the toilet had blocked and was leaking all over the floor.

Chris sorted it and mopped it up and detached the toilet and unblocked the pipe etc etc (a smelly job), whilst I put the kids to bed. In the process of removing the toilet, it broke and so it turned out we needed a new one fairly quickly.

So onto the internet…. and this is where Ireland seems to turn into a big black hole of nothingness. It’s so interesting and frustrating sometimes. You just don’t seem to be able to find certain things online here very easily. Where we live, there are also no shops that you’d immediately think of to get one from. We are only about half an hour or so away from the border, so half an hour away from Northern Ireland. We knew there was a Screwfix in Enniskillen so we looked there (on the UK site). They had what we wanted and we could click and collect, the only thing is, you have to put a UK mobile number in so they can text you, they won’t accept an Irish one. We don’t have a UK mobile.

When we found that out, we had a look at Screwfix, Ireland. The nearest one to us is Galway, which is about 2 1/4 ish hours away, compared to an hour away for Enniskillen, and they didn’t have it for either delivery or collection, neither did many others. We then tried Homebase because we know there’s one at Sligo (an hour away), but you could only order online from the North. Here, you have to contact the store directly or visit, which isn’t very handy when you need it quickly (and during a lockdown).

We searched and could not find anywhere where we could simply buy a toilet from apart from Screwfix. So we used someone else’s number (with permission) and they text Chris when they got the ‘it’s ready’ text through (thankyou), which was really quickly, early today.

So Chris took the day off from work, went and fetched it and has fitted it already and it seems really good! He says he’s going to use the bits from the old one for planters (It’s expensive to dispose of heavy things here), so I look forward to having stuff planted in a toilet. haha.

Anyway, there’s our little toilet anecdote. I’m very glad Chris is good at doing things, he’s never put a toilet in before but he installed it easily and it is working. That’s always a bonus, a toilet that works. And, it has to be said, putting one in for the first time with no problems is skill! Living near the border is also very useful sometimes too. I’m also very grateful that you can actually get a toilet so quickly with a bit of help and that we have a new toilet, the old one was a bit grotty.

It turns out our septic tank needs emptying, so now we need to find someone to do that. We’re waiting on a number, so another new experience!

Good bye!

Cathy.