Saturday, August 14, 2010

Thou shall not swim

Few things are as relaxing on a hot summer day than to dip your toes into a refreshing swimming pool. Within seconds, you're taken to place far from ringing telephones, deadlines, responsibilities. Time in a pool stands still.

As our friend Rat says "There is nothing, absolutely nothing, half so much worth doing as simply messing, messing about by a river, or in a river or on a river. It doesn't matter which". River, of course, is Victorian English for swimming pool. (Boat is substituted for River in the movie versions. Boat is wrong and wrongheaded)

Except of course when you can't.

Each morning, as is my habit, I take the dogs out, walk the grounds, check to see what the deer have eaten overnight, when recently I noticed how still it was. Why was the water level in the pool a foot less than when I went to bed?



A pipe had burst in here overnight.

The pump sprayed a geyser draining the pool inside the pool house. The flooded pump was destroyed. The electrical panel...destroyed, the pool sweep destroyed, the rare, no longer available heater tubes, destroyed.

While waiting for all the pipes, parts, wires, tubes and gaskets to arrive the pool turned to




Mercifully, all are finally back together. With all new pieces we should be good to go, worry free for years. In a few days the pool will clear, the temps will fall, and it will be time to close the river until next year.

That will give me time to rid the lake of its duckweed infestation.



Toad

8 comments:

Jules said...

Oh I do miss my pool! Perhaps next house!!

ADG said...

Man. I take a week off from checking in and the whole world, and your swimming pool, falls apart.

I'm back on the job now so things should go a little smoother for the next few.

Suburban Princess said...

Oh no!!!! I feel your pain! We havn't had a pool heater all summer. We have a solar heating kit filling our basement but no one to install it! No doubt the installer will arrive on Labour day weekend ready to get to work.

Hopefully you get lots of nice weather between now and the end of the season!

David said...

Things like this are what made us sell the house and move to the condo. What made us move back to a house I'll never know. Glad everything is back together in the pool house.

Dovecote Decor said...

All I can say is that things could have been worse at the Manor! Catching it right away had to be the silver lining. Thanks for following us! You have excellent manners!

Silk Regimental said...

Seems like you're always working on that pool or poolhouse - When I had my boat ten years ago, I would say everything concerning a boat starts at $100. Now it seems absolutely nothing starts a less than $100. Carry on.

house things said...

What a horrible thing to have happen. Good thing you noticed it right away.

Regarding pools - the rectangle shape is my favorite.

LPC said...

Wonderful. My father just told me that the reason his pool was so cold last week was that a rat had chewed through their wiring. Why, you wonder. I have no idea.