It seems as if weeks have passed since I last put fingers to keyboard. I spend quite a lot of time on the computer at work and so I’m not so keen on firing it up when I get home and I have had to deal with the storm water problems yet again.

I thought after I repaired the pipe at the front of the house, that the problem was fixed but alas no.

It rained the next day. I back filled the hole and covered it with flagstones and mulch I was very happy, but when the rain came the torrent of water spewing out of the gutters and downpipe was enormous and so it was obvious that there had to be another problem.

I got the extension ladder out and precariously leaned it up against the house, the angle of incline was very steep and so I tied the ladder to the house but was not very confident climbing up. I peered over the roof and into the gutter and downpipe, the gutter was dry but the downpipe was filled to the brim with water, how can that be me thinks?

I hoped it wouldn’t rain too much until I got an opportunity to dig up the other connection to the storm water to try to find the problem or try to find out what was blocking the pipe. At the same time as all of this is happening one of the downpipes going under the deck had also begun to leak and I’m thinking it never rains but it pours. I never connected these two problems but as it turned out, they were.

I was going to start digging on Saturday after work but by the afternoon, the sun was already cooking that side of the house so I thought I’d start bright and early on Sunday, well 8.30 am bright and early. The ground was not too hard thankfully and after I got down a few inches, the soil was easy to move.

I found the storm water and soon found out why the pipe was “blocked” apparently my builders offsider isn’t skilled in the art of plumbing and so he connected both downpipes to each other completely bypassing the storm water pipe rendering it useless and of course this accounted for the stagnant water in the both pipes.

I rectified the problem but it did take a few hours. The shadow on the western wall was retreating and being consumed by the sun and if I didn’t hurry it would get to me too. Sunday was hot, really hot and the humidity was around 70% , so all and all a bit miserable.

In the afternoon, I popped out the shops and the temperature on the billboard said 38c and this was around 3.30pm in the afternoon, so working out in the midday sun was not very pleasant but I finally got the job done and was quite happy with the result.

I haven’t filled in the hole yet because it hasn’t rained and I just want to make sure that all is working before I cover up my masterpiece. But when I get home today, if I have the energy I’ll start to fill the hole again because I want to finish putting mulch down on that side of the house so that I can get another trailer load on Saturday.