Alex's Historical Fiction

Water excitement

Yesterday in parts of York water mains burst due to an electrical fault at a pumping station. The water mains were registering as empty but they weren't so when extra water automatically was pumped in the pressure built up and blew in the early hours of Tuesday morning. The result was water running down streets like a river and back gardens flooded. I actually saw some of this whilst on the Tescos bus, which passes round the parts of Acomb (pronounced the southern softy way of a-cum, not ackom as some Leeds person put it), in particular Gale Lane.Yorkshire Water vans were out in force, as was the local tv station. I didn't know what was going on till I saw the local BBC News. There was also something going on at the top of Hamilton Drive on the way back, which wasn't there when we went out. Despite it being so close to us on the hill, we weren't affected. Hope Martyn was OK too. 500 properties had their water cut off - not funny in this weather. Supplies were being restored by mid-afternoon though.

Standard Life has floated as a company, and we decided to cut and run on the share front. Hence a windfall of over £1000 - which will knock all of £1000 of the £6000 shortfall on our stupid mortage endowment ... Unfortunately, we have two lots of cr*p endowments, so the shortfall is bigger than that. I was very dubious at the time about their claims that it would cover (I tend to be very cautious with money after family money problems in my childhood) but a lot of pressure and reassurances were put our way. However, Batman is now doggedly pursuing them for compensation, so tough.

posted by Alex Bordessa @ Wednesday, July 19, 2006