Still wet behind the ears

Avid readers of The Low Down may recall that within days of moving into our Amsterdam abode, we experienced a basement flood of near-biblical proportions. A burst pipe in our absent neighbour’s house turned our guest room, study  and storeroom into something resembling the lost city of Atlantis.

Five months later, with the gentle lapping of water against our precious belongings a distant memory, we were preparing to embark on a summer break in Tuscany with our regular family holiday companions, the Broken Hill-billies.  With thirty minutes remaining until we needed to depart for the airport, Ned Nederlander discovered what could only be described as “a big puddle” in the basement and a disturbing drip coming from the boiler.  Survival instincts kicked in; flood or flight? An almost unbearable decision.

Readers should note that European domestic boilers are possibly one of the most intimidating of all appliances, combining complex electrical engineering principles with the temperament of a tired toddler and the predictability of a drunken unicyclist.  They are simply not to be meddled with. Ned and I could no sooner have turned the thing off than we could have shut down a nuclear reactor.  

Now, the Hill-billies are great friends of several decades standing.  They have weathered many previous melt-downs with us, along with occasional instances of marital fission.  As Ned and I struggled to retain our composure, the Hill-billies sensitively picked up on the imminent fallout, and before you could say “chain reaction”, they had grabbed De Jongens, their passports and bags, and headed to the airport, gaily farewelling us with promises of postcards and a souvenir jar of olives.  As they disappeared out of sight, Ned and I briefly entertained the idea of putting a bucket under the boiler before running away together for a romantic week in Mauritius.

Instead we activated a dizzyingly complicated barrage of instructional text messages, phone calls, emails and heartfelt pleas to friends, plumbers, neighbours and landlords.  That took us just enough time to ensure that the Hill-billies shepherded De Jongens through check-in, baggage drop, passport control and hundreds of duty-free shops at Schiphol without the need for Ned or I to be involved in any way. We figured that was almost as good as a week in Mauritius, so we decided to join them on our planned Italian family adventure after all.

The next ten days were spent trying not to think about what might or might not be happening back home in our basement. Aquatic reminders were everywhere.

For example, at our farm-house hideaway in the hills above Lucca, De Jongens made the most of the swimming pool in the olive grove.  They were unaware of the mental anguish they were causing me with their constant refrain of “I wish we had a swimming pool at our house in Amsterdam”.

In Florence, while other tourists marvelled at Renaissance masterpieces featuring countless images of cherubic archangels, I saw only ark angels. 


The Ponte Vecchio in Florence

Venice

A charming Venetian gondolier emphasised the convenience of being able to moor a boat at one’s front door, and sometimes inside one’s front door. My blood pressure soared. A fellow ferry passenger on the Grand Canal regaled us with stories of flooded houses and the associated need to build new upper storeys as previously-dry basements succumbed to the murky lagoon waters.



Each time someone farewelled us with an “arrivederci”, I heard “a river Dutchie”.

Venice

An enormous information board in front of the Venice campanile outlined innovative new flood control measures for the famous piazza.  The board included photos of grave-looking engineers standing in ankle-deep water in front of St Mark’s Basilica, and I’m sure I looked pretty grave myself as I struggled to rid my mind of my own domestic flood imagery.


Kleine Jongen at the helm

Terror on the Cinque Terre

On top of all that, Ned and I were exposed to a steady stream of whinging from De Jongens, which at times felt like a raging torrent. The cause of their complaints varied, but essentially they were afraid that they would drown in culture, the poor things.  They were bored with being pumped full of useless explanations about the incredibly boring and irrelevant Renaissance, they were sick of swimming against the endless tide of tourists, they were being unfairly and unreasonably flooded with religious history, their holiday was awash with art they neither liked nor cared about.

Cinque Terre

Ned and I simply fed them another gelato and ignored their wishy-washy complaints.

Despite the mental anguish caused by such constant watery images, Italy proved to be an extremely pleasant place to contemplate our aquatic future.  In contrast to the lowlands, it was hot and dry – really hot and really dry.  The food was fabulous. The wine was copious.  The architecture was astonishing.  The sense of history was at times overwhelming.

Sadly, our sense of aquatic dread as we returned home was huge.

Lucca

 It was heightened by a meeting with our elderly neighbour - yes, she of the burst pipe fame - about 100 metres from home.  “Oh hello dear”, she smiled, “I hope you’ve had a lovely holiday.  I have a few things to tell you”.  We were in the middle of a pedestrian crossing on a busy street, moving purposefully in opposite directions, calling politely to each other over our shoulders. But I froze when she said “My basement has filled with water again, but I’ll have to tell you about it later. Cheerio”. That would be the basement that shares a common internal wall with our own basement.



Venice

Ned and I momentarily contemplated returning to the airport and taking the first flight to Mauritius. But, with the Hill-billies by now on a flight back to Australia, we would have had to take De Jongens with us, so we dismissed that as an option and bravely continued our homeward journey. You can’t imagine how gingerly we entered our house, how expectantly we sniffed the air for evidence of ark angels, how reluctantly we descended the stairs to our basement to find... a floor as dry as a Tuscan road. Not a drop to be seen.

We soon realised that the desperate series of phone calls, emails and text messages sent before we left for the airport had generated the required chain reaction.  A plumber had managed to get into our house to assess the situation; he had expertly turned off the intimidating boiler; he had recognised that the said boiler needed a major overhaul; he would be back to conduct the necessary repairs and reconnect the hot water . . . in three days from now.

I have decided not to fret about our temporary lack of hot water, nor to make waves by asking why it was not fixed during our ten day absence.  Instead, in the hours I saved today by not having a shower and not doing the required six loads of holiday washing, and while looking forlornly out the window at Amsterdam's wet and chilly attempt at summer, I embarked on some detailed research into the possibility of squeezing in one more holiday before school resumes.

So I might just get to Mauritius after all.